Mercury Rising

I have been working on a rooftop in Boothbay this week, putting some stone veneer on a chimney. The house is situated on this amazing point, flanked on either side by little coves, one of which is particularly sandy and inviting. I watched the tide go out all morning and I was thinking, wow, that cove looks just like a small boat landing. The home is located rather far out in the coastal williwags and there is no road leading down to the landing-cove anymore, but I had no trouble imagining some 19th Century lobsterman loading his boat up with wooden traps right there on that beach. Tide was lowest at lunch and I said to Damon, my business partner, "Let's get our food to go. I want to hit that beach for a few before we go back up on that roof."
I grabbed my machine and ran down the path to the water. After driving to the store, ordering food, paying, and driving back, there wasn't much time left for anything, but I was determined to get in at least a few moments. I swung the coil back and forth. Nothing. After a couple minutes, I thought that maybe this would be the first beach in Maine I had ever detected with not a bit of metal of any sort. Literally nothing, not even any muted "junk" signals from the E-trac. I checked to make sure it was on. Yep. Then a quiet, but solid signal in the 12 range, 12-30 or something. I suspected aluminum foil or a pull tab. However, out popped the first Mercury dime of the year! It's in rough shape, heavily weathered by the sea, so that I cannot even make out a date, but that's ok. There are more where that came from.