Today was such a cool day because I got to help out a fellow detectorist. đłđ Allan and Ami came down for the weekend to celebrate their 16th anniversary and unfortunately Murphyâs Law struck quickly. As they were waiting to check in they decided to wade out in the beautiful Gulf waters. Allan was explaining to Ami that she had to be very careful out in the deeper water because your ring can fall right off your hand. As he touched his left hand to illustrate his point… you guessed it, Kerplunk! Allanâs ring fell straight down in the water and quickly buried in the sand. Luckily they emailed me and although I didnât get the email until late last night, we touched base first thing this morning. I quickly started getting ready and unfortunately tragedy struck. I badly pulled a muscle in my upper back and had to be helped to lie down. My wife sent Allan and Ami a text explaining that I was hurt and there was no way I could come today. They are very nice people and were more concerned with my health than anything else. I took some Motrin and laid still for a few hours until I dozed off. I woke up and realized that whatever had popped in my back was back where it was supposed to be and although I was really sore, I gingerly went to the front yard to see if I could swing my detector without too much pain. It hurt but I knew Allan and Ami were leaving town at 2pm and I really wanted to send his ring with them. I gave them a call and luckily they were still here and about to have lunch at Peglegâs. I was quickly enroute to the beach. Well Allan has done a lot of land detecting and he had tried to mark the location of the ring when it fell and did a great job. I always do a larger area and overlap my passes multiple ways because I have learned what Allan was about to; itâs never where itâs supposed to be in the water. đ. The first thing I found was an iPhone X in a Lifeproof case complete with multiple credit cards (stay tuned for that return story this week đ). Although it definitely wasnât their ring, I think it gave Ami some hope that I really could find stuff buried in the sand out in the water. It wasnât too many passes before I was worried that Allan might be getting concerned that I was in the wrong area. But then I heard that beautiful sound!!! I called to Allan and waved him out to join me. He looked shocked when I told him that I thought I had located it and asked if he would like to do the âhonorsâ and âdig it upâ. He told me to go ahead and I very gently dug a large scoop full of sand. When I verified with my machine that I had whatever it was in my scoop, I just smiled and handed the scoop to him. Well, he smiled even bigger when he washed out the sand and saw his ring gleaming back at him. It was a great moment when he quickly put that ring back where it belongs and began striding back to Ami to show her that their anniversary weekend just got a whole lot better. đ
Thank you Allan and Ami for letting me help you and for your patience and understanding when I was hurt this morning. Thank you also to the very nice front desk crew (especially Gillian) at the Holiday Inn Pensacola Beach who allowed me to park on property and even helped us celebrate when Allan showed them his ring! đđđ
I can only say I could not ask for a better end to a situation I’d almost walked away from. After dropping the ring and the immediate search around my feet, I found a line reference on shore and began shuffling my feet hoping for the million to one chance of touching it…no luck. I explained to Ami that we were standing on top of it, that the density of gold took it to the bottom and the shape trapped enough sand that it was completely covered within seconds. After an hour of looking (36″ of water), I’d written off finding it. Being a land detectorist and a diver, I’d on several occasions considered purchasing an underwater machine and even suggested to Ami in the heat of the search that I should go ahead and buy one to retrieve my ring. We went about our day, down on the loss. That evening, Ami found Dave via an internet search and made contact. He responded Saturday evening and we returned an email Sunday morning, learning that he had already packed and was eager to help us. We were disappointed when Jeannie text us that he’d pulled a muscle, but gave him our best and checked out of the hotel. We were about to enter the Peg Leg’s for lunch when we got the call that he was better and enroute. When we got back to the hotel, Dave was already preparing to enter the water based on the references I’d given him. He gridded the area and in no time offered me the honors of scooping it up. All I can say is ‘Thank you very much’ for your retrieval efforts and returning the ring my wife put on my finger 16 years ago. It was a pleasure to meet both you and Jeannie and wish you both the best.
I lost a ring between Holiday Inn Resort, Paradise Bar and Margaritaville Beach Hotel. This would have been in 2016 I believe, anybody find one?