Edward Duffey, Author at The Ring Finders | Page 7 of 9

Late Tuesday afternoon I was driving north to Corolla when I received a call from Austin.  He had lost his wedding ring in the sand in Kill Devil Hills.  I told him that I was about 45 minutes away but I wanted to try to find it anyway because you never know.  In my experience, the sooner you look for a lost item, the better.

When I arrived, just after seven, it was completely dark and no moon.  Austin took me to the beach and it was pitch black.  Luckily, someone in the apartment building we were in front of cut on their flood lights.  Also, Austin had marked the spot where he thought he lost it.

This is the first time I had used the XP Deus II on a ring recovery but I had about 3 weeks of using it under my belt.  I fired it up and almost immediately I got a hit.  But whatever it was went right through the scoop.  I had another pass and got a great hit.  Voila!  It was the ring!  Austin was very happy, as was I.

I was visiting my Brother-in-law, George, and his wife Lori in DeLand, Florida.  When we were talking the first evening, George mentioned that he had lost his gold wedding ring.  I asked him how long he had been missing it and if he had an idea or where it was.

George led me out to the front yard and showed me an area in the yard where he thought he had lost it.   The ring, (which had also been his late father’s wedding ring), had been lost four years ago.  He was mowing at the time and said it could have hit the deck or even the mower blade which could have thrown it significantly.  They spent hours on several days looking for it.

I fired up the Equinox 800 and immediately got several suspected targets.  None panned out and it was getting late, so I said I’d try again in the morning.  The yard was full of metal, and it was a target-rich environment.   Target after target was ruled out until I decided to go back where I started.  Almost immediately I got a hit.  As I dug the target, I saw the gold of the ring shining.  Found!

Al and Daniel, brother’s from Detroit and Baltimore, where tossing a football on the beach.  It was a beautiful day in the Outer Banks.  Suddenly, with the last toss, Al felt his ring slip off.  They looked and looked but couldn’t find it.

The next day around 10:30, I got a call.  Daniel told me that his brother had lost his wedding ring on Duck Beach.  It was in the dry sand. above the water line.  I headed out and met them at the access.

The brothers set a perimeter of where they thought the ring had slipped off.  It was quite a large area.  I covered the area both North and South and then East and West but only found trivial metal items.  I told Al that I would start expanding the search.

As I started expanding to the south (out of the area of possibility) about 10 yards and after several passes I got a deep hit.  It was the ring.  The Minelab machine had done its job again and Al was elated!!

I received a text from Asit on Wednesday at around 9pm.  He wanted to inquire about my lost ring service.  I told him to give me a call and he did.  Asit explained that he had been boogie boarding with his daughter’s when he lost his platinum wedding ring.  He didn’t really remember when he lost it but by looking at pictures he assumed that it was around noon.

I explained that high tide yesterday was near the time he lost it and that a good time to look would have been the next low time at 5pm but that time was gone.  The next low tide that I could get there would be around 5 the next day.  I told him that I could come up around 3pm.

When I arrived I fired up the Eq 800 and did a grid search parallel with the water from the dry sand to the water and about a foot deep.  No targets…not even a pop bottle cap.  I decided to do a vertical grid from the dry sand to the water.  On about the 8th pass…BEEP.  A great signal but a 14.  I decided to dig it anyway!  Unknown to me, Asit’s wife Rachna had been filming the find!

Another happy family!

Finding the ring