Tim with his returned ring.
I received a call from Tim in Upstate NY on a Wednesday. He was very upset. He had lost his ring, the day before while on vacation in Stone Harbor NJ, while he playing in the surf. He had tried looking for it but he feared that is was gone.
I couldn’t look for it till the following Sunday. I asked him several questions and he knew the answers to them all. He was very prepared and knew where he lost the ring.
I started searching at 5:30 am that Sunday. There were very few targets on the beach. I was fearing the worst, that someone else had already found the ring. By 7:30 I only had found 6 targets, 2 coins and 4 pieces of trash. I was ready to give up. I said to myself a couple more passes then I can leave. At 8 am I had a good tone, scooped it up and low and behold I had Tim’s ring. I left the beach and got ready to drive home and the song on the radio was « Whoop There It Is ».
When I got home I called Tim. He couldn’t believe that I found it. He made arrangements to drive down and pick it up that Tuesday. He even brought his wedding album to show my wife and I. He was so happy to get his ring back. Even though I told him a reward was not necessary, he left one.
Below is Tim’s story:
We were having a great week on vacation at the beach in Stone Harbor. The temperature (weather and water) were just perfect , but the surf was a bit rough. On Tuesday I went for a swim right about high tide and then I went back to our « camp » to dry off and immediately realized that I had lost my wedding ring in the water! I knew exactly where I had been swimming but searched and was unable to find it. I was very disappointed to say the least but still continued to look into the next day hoping the tide would wash it up, but no luck. I thought I would never see it again.
The next morning we had to take my daughter to urgent care because she was running a fever (she’s fine). On the way back she fell asleep in the car and I stopped to pick up some lunch. While I was gone my wife got bored in the car and started searching the internet on her phone to see if anyone had posted a ring under the « lost+found » on Craiglist. She stumbled upon this story http://theringfinders.com/blog/Dave.Milsted/2012/06/lost-gold-ring-stone-harbor-nj/ , which ultimately led to us contacting Dave to see if he could help us find the ring. We were skeptical but he said he could look for the ring but not until the next Sunday (we came back home to NY on Saturday). On Sunday AM he called to tell us he had located the ring! We were amazed, it was buried several inches in the sand right where I said I lost it, 6 days earlier. Dave sent a email with the picture to confirm it was in fact the ring! I drove back down to Jersey the following Tuesday to retrieve the ring. We are very happy to have it back and still in disbelief!
Lessons learned:
1-Leave your rings at home
2-Looking for a ring in the ocean is NOT like looking for a needle in the haystack:)
3-Google DOES have all the answers
4-Dave is amazing, thanks so much!
Nice work Dave! Hope you had a great vacation also. Amazing the ring was still there and detectable with all the sand that has plagued us washing up on the surf in our area. Good job!!