Gregg Larabel, Author at The Ring Finders | Page 5 of 16

On my way to work today, I received a call from Josh K. about his wife loosing her heirloom ring (her mom gave it to her years ago). Jayne K. was raking leaves in the front yard and playing with her daughters in the leave piles afterwards. Shortly after they finished raking and playing, Jayne noticed her ring missing. Josh borrowed a metal detector and went over his front yard. Not being familiar with the detector he was unsuccessful. Josh had 11 bags of leaves that he searched one bag at a time with no luck. Josh went to the internet and looked up lost rings, detecting services and found The Ring Finders. He was a little skeptical about someone coming out and searching for a ring but after his call to me and telling him I would be out at 4pm he was very happy I could get there so soon.

My Ring Finder friend, Dave Boyer, and I showed up at their house at 4pm and proceeded to search the front yard. I made about 6 passes in a back and forth grid pattern and on the 6th pass I got a nice signal and saw her gold ring. I told Josh that I gave up and hesitated a bit and said « because I found it ». Josh’s eyes lit up and with a big smile and a bear hug he said « thank you ».  Jayne was not home at the time but I’m sure when she found out her ring was recovered she will have a very nice Thanksgiving.

I received a text today at 3:11 pm from Alan O. telling me Tom Townsend (a Ring Finder) referred me as he was unavailable. Alan’s sister-in-law Stefanie C. was visiting Alan’s parents home on Mona Lake in Norton Shores, Michigan. Stefanie put her ring in Alan’s hat for safe keeping and it fell onto the dock and into the water. They thought it was about 3 feet of water on a sandy but weedy bottom. I texted Alan back right away and told him I could be out there, with my Ring Finder partner Dave Boyer, in about an hour.

When I got to the home we introduced ourselves and got our equipment out and went down to the water. We reached the end of the dock where the ring fell in and it was about chest deep. We searched an area where Alan felt the ring would have went in the water but didn’t get any signals so I searched under the dock because it had perforated holes big enough for a small ring to fall through. I got a good hit on the platinum ring and after 3 scoops there it was. Alan yelled up to the ladies sitting on the deck, « they found it! »

Alan text Stefanie letting her know the ring was recovered and said he will mail it to her. Stefanie lives in Pittsburgh, PA. and will send me a picture of her with the ring for our Book of Smiles.

While I was out searching for a ring today in Grand Haven, MI, I got a call from Ken L. about his wedding ring he lost while playing with his grandchildren in about 4 to 5 feet of water at the 8th avenue Park in Georgetown, MI. Although it was lost over a month ago I thought I would take a chance to see if I could find it before another detector did. I told Ken and his wife Janet that the chance of finding it would be slim and they should prepare themselves to to put in a Craigslist ad when they get home.

After about an hour of doing a grid search from 3 to 5 feet I decided to call it quits but told the couple I would get a hold of one of my club member friends who detects the park often. I messaged Terry Sparks on Facebook and got an immediate response to call him. I put Ken on the call and Terry said yes indeed he found the ring after Ken identified it with the engravings of his and Janet’s initials. After getting an address they were off to pick up the ring. I love the fact that I can depend on other metal detectors in our network to help out when needed.                                                                                                                          Thank you again Terry for your honesty and dependability.

By the way I did not recover the ring in Grand Haven due to lack of visibility in the river, I will be back in September.

After recovering a ring earlier that evening, I got a call from Jen M. about her husband, Mark M., loosing his wedding ring at Pere Marquette Park in Lake Michigan. The area where it was lost was a cove where people park their boats and swim. They were in about 4 to 5 feet of water when Mark’s ring came off. My Ring Finder partner, Dave Boyer, and I made arrangements to meet Jen at 8am in the morning, I was concerned that another Detector would find it before we got there.

The day was cool and dark and dreary it stormed but we were never weary on our 45 mile trip to the lake. We met Jen, she showed us the area and in the rain we started our search. The waves were rolling about a foot which made detecting a little rough trying to keep our balance. I got a good signal out about waist level which turned out to be an old can top. Moving out deeper about up to my neck with the rolling waves I got a great signal and put my scoop into the sandy bottom several times and about the fourth scoop I saw the white gold wedding band at the bottom of my scoop. We walked up to the beach and Jen was in her car out of the rain. I held up the ring and Jen got out of her car and asked if she could give me a hug, so in my wet clothes we hugged and she was one happy lady. She immediately called her husband to tell him the good news. Another day of making someone happy, I love my job.

My Ring Finder partner, Dave Boyer, received an email from Guillermo R. about a friend who lost a diamond pendant just after Osman K., her new fiance, proposed. They were deep in the woods of Saugatuck State Park up on an Oak tree lined trail. After his proposal Abby’s friend ran up to her and gave her a hug, at that time Abby dropped the pendant out of her hand. They searched a couple of hours through the leaves and the rotted undergrowth to no avail. That night they searched the internet and found TheRingFinders.

We met Abby and Osman at the park the next morning and made our way up and around the park paths to the spot of the proposal. We searched up and down the hill and finally after about 30 minutes I got a very faint signal on my Fisher F75 detector. I looked down and still didn’t see anything until I pushed some dirt away and I saw a little glimmer of gold . There it was, Abby and Osman smiled in amazement and Dave couldn’t believe it was such a small item we were searching for. We used our Garret (carrot) pin pointer and it would not register.

Abby and Osman are students at Hope college studying special education for the Blind. We said our good byes and wished them well. By The Way, she did say « YES » to his proposal.

  

My Ring Finder partner, Dave Boyer, got an email from Charles S. earlier today but didn’t hear from him right away so I looked up his name on Facebook and messaged him to give me a call ASAP. A few minutes later I got a call from Charles explaining how he lost his ring while playing with his kids in the lake. I got the directions to the lake, called Dave and we were on our way. When we got to the lake we met Charles, his wife Savanna and their daughter Addison. When we started the search Savanna told us Addison lost her ring too in shallow water. My first step I recovered Savanna’s ring but didn’t say anything yet. I was hoping to do a bonus return but after 2 hours of hunting I showed Savanna the ring and said, « is this your ring? » She happily said « yes ». We told Charles he didn’t have to wait around and if we find the ring we would contact them. They lived about an hour away and had been camping at the lake.

After making several grid passes in the swimming area I decided to go deep up to my shoulders Dave joined me in the area and got a good signal and came up with a new penny. We moved about 2 feet away and Dave got a good signal again but couldn’t scoop it so I went in with my big Bertha scoop and there it was at the bottom of the scoop. We gave Charles a call and he was beside himself that we found his ring. We met at McDonald’s and exchanged hand shakes, hugs and pictures. That was the nicest tungsten ring I have ever seen it had a gold band around it set with diamonds. Thank you Charles for the call and having faith in us.

A text to Tracy M. C. today: « Tracy, Your rings have been lost for over 8 days in Lake Michigan, in good and bad water conditions. I have searched for hours, my friend has helped, he came back the next day with another detector guy, my Ring Finder partner, Dave Boyer, came out yesterday and grid the area between buoys 9-11 and could not find them and I came out again this morning and grid the same area, 50′ X 50′, from the shore to up to my neck. I am calling it quits. Call me back ».

Tracy called me back and was thankful for all we had done and accepted the fact that the rings were gone. I told her, « no they are not lost, I QUIT LOOKING, because I found them. » Her rings were soldered together.

After some happy moments on the phone Tracy and her husband Kevin C. made arrangements to come to my house tomorrow to pick up the rings and add her to my « Book of Smiles ».

I read a post on Facebook that referred me to Kristen V. who lost her wedding ring while playing with a football on a sandbar. Boaters spend weekends and holidays partying there. Instead of waiting for her to call me I messaged her and her husband, Don, right away. Time is of the essence when a ring is lost in a public area. After conversing through Facebook, my Ring Finder partner Dave Boyer and I made arrangements to meet Kristen at her home on Monday morning. When we arrived at her house we immediately followed her by car to the sandbar where the ring was lost. Kristen stood out in the water showing us where she was standing when the ring came off her finger. We began our search in the area it was lost and after 30 minutes we located the ring deeper than first expected due to the football hitting the ring and sending it out in deeper water.

There is a saying in metal detecting « find 100 pull tabs and bottle caps then you will find a ring ». We almost found that many but we made a woman very happy when the ring was found. Thank you Tyler L. for the referral.

This story is told better from the young lady who called me, this is how it went:

« So on Sunday we went swimming at the lake and I lost my wedding ring. I have been devastated about it. The ring is irreplaceable. Tyler G. took weeks on finding me the perfect ring and told me I could pick something different but I wanted the one he put so much thought into. My uncle Bob, who runs Kings Landing kampgrounds, told me he would rake the lake but still that’s not a guarantee. So I called this awesome guy Gregg Edward Larabel, I found online, read his bio and decided I needed him to find my ring. The search was cut short because it started to thunder. But he and 2 of his amazing friends who came out the next day and didn’t stop until they found it. I’m beyond excited to have my ring back. Thanks so much guys ».

So on Monday after I got Lacie J’s call I jumped in the car for the 2 hour ride hoping that the weather would hold out but after a couple hours hunting for the ring I had to give up. The next day after an hour and going chest deep in to the water I recovered her ring, gave her a call, went to the nursing home where she worked and the rest is Ringfinder history. Thank you Dave Boyer my fellow Ringfinder for driving.

 

I got a text from my friend Jay N. who’s friend lost his wedding ring while boating at a local lake. I went out the next morning with my Ring Finder friend, Dave Boyer. After meeting Drew L. and his wife Kristin they pointed us in the area and in about 20 minutes with Dave and I doing a grid search, Dave came up with this beauty of a ring.