I saw an ad on Craigslist that Jesse had lost his crystal necklace (quartz). It was a rather large piece of quartz, about two inches in length. I started several communications with Jesse because I needed to know details: Which beach entrance did you go in? Where were you sitting? Did you go in the water? If so, how deep and at what time? etc. etc.
Jesse knew all the details, he gave me markers of where he was. It turns out this necklace had a magnetic clasp (a recipe for losing any item). He recalled having it on in the water. Shortly after he left the beach he noticed it missing. I was concerned, as it could be in the water. Not a problem, as I am fully outfitted for underwater recovery, but it was the evening now, and it would have to wait until the next day if it was in the water……but maybe it wasn’t.
I swung by the location Jesse mentioned at 10pm. I came upon a huge cut. It was probably 4.5 feet of vertical drop. Jesse mentioned there was a cut and he was sitting just behind it. I searched the area but only found a few bottle caps, it was actually a very clean beach. I then went down and did started checking the cut itself, not easy when its so steep, and at night. In the cut, like many do, I saw a slight valley that bathers were using to go to and from the beach to the ocean. Usually these are created because someone first tried to make the journey, fell or slid and opened a valley. I know that most bathers would be using this to make the journey to the ocean and back, and that many slip and fall here as its still pretty steep. I got a hit, and out popped Jesse’s necklace, magnetic clasp and all.
He was completely floored that I found it. The quartz necklace is basically worthless. Its on a ball chain, and is a basic quartz crystal that is wrapped in wire. Jesse however gave me a generous reward, saying that this was very important to him and had sentimental value.
Here is a picture of the find:
Nice recovery! Not a lot of metal to work with there.