I received a text from Brian on Thursday, July 15th, saying “I lost a men’s wedding band, white gold with 6 diamonds, in the ocean behind Anderson Ocean Club. Can you help?” I replied asking him to call me. This hotel was in Myrtle Beach, which is Matt Fry’s area. Matt had just called me within the last hour saying he was going out of town for the weekend. Matt also said that if I got any calls for Myrtle Beach to go ahead and take them, and if he got calls he’d pass them to me. I planned on getting Brian’s information and then calling Matt to see if he wanted the call before he left town. When Brian and I talked I got additional details. He lost his ring the day before, right at high tide, in waist deep water. He also knew the area he had lost it. I tried calling Matt a couple of times without success so decided to take this search. Looking at the tide tables, it was right at low tide. I called Brian back and asked him if he could meet me in about 30 minutes to show me the area, he agreed. As I tell my wife I’m heading out for a ring search, I get the look (all husbands know the look!!) as she says “Now? Dinner’s ready!!” I told her its low tide and I’ll heat dinner up in the micro-wave when I get home. I must say though, she’s a real trooper. Never complains about the crazy hours I have for ring searches.
I met Brian on the beach behind the resort and he showed me the exact location of where he lost his ring. I’m thinking this should be pretty easy. He lost the ring waist deep at high tide, and it’s now low tide. Logically, the ring should be right there on the down slope to the low tide line. One thing I’ve learned doing ring searches, logic and Mother Nature do not work well together. When Mother Nature throws in the wind, the waves, and the sand movement she’s in full control of the situation and anything lost in the ocean. I started a grid search parallel to the beach working the slope out to the low tide line. At some point, I told Brian that he didn’t need to stick around, if he wanted to go back up to his room or take the family to get something to eat I’d call him if something came up. I searched for over two and an half hours, using 2 different detectors, without finding Brian’s ring. I called Brian and told him I was done for the night and would be back in the morning, Friday. I could hear the distress in Brian’s voice, which made it harder for me to stop searching.
Friday, I’m trying to come up with another game plan for Brian’s ring, when I get another ring search. Ironically, this call was at the same resort but on the north side. I asked this owner to meet me at 3 p.m. since he had other business to attend to. So, now I had two ring searches in the same area about 100 yards apart. I didn’t feel I could do both searches, giving a 100%, by myself. I called Jim Brouwer and told him the situation; he agreed to help but would be about an hour late. When I got to the beach to do the searches, Mother Nature was up to her antics again. Strong winds with big waves that were crashing up on the beach. There was no way I could do a search until the conditions calmed down. Over an hour later, things calmed down some and Jim had shown up. I asked Jim to search for Brian’s ring while I searched for the 2nd ring. I asked Jim to search for Brian’s ring because sometimes a different detector, with a different technique, and different ears makes a difference. After finding the 2nd ring, I joined Jim to look for Brian’s. After 3 hours, we still didn’t have Brian’s ring. Again I called Brian with the bad news.
I couldn’t make it on Saturday, but Sunday I got out early in the morning, an hour before low tide, determined to find Brian’s ring. I started a perpendicular grid search at one of Brian’s landmarks that he had pointed out to me on Thursday. My plan was to search from the top of the slope out to knee deep water across the beach to Brian’s second landmark. I was half way through the area and out in the ocean about shin deep, when I got a great signal on the White’s PI. One scoop and I had the target out of the hole. I spread the sand out with my foot and saw a monster of a ring. Bingo, with the description Brian had given me on Thursday, there was no doubt I had Brian’s ring in my hand. It was still early in the morning, but I took a picture of the ring and sent it to Brian, and followed it up with a phone call. No answer! Called a couple more times with no answer, must have been too early. I was hoping that Brian and his family were still in Myrtle Beach and not on their way home to Michigan so I could hand him his ring. Brian finally answered the text with “Wow.” I called him, and although he had just been woken up with a ringing phone, he was very excited. Unfortunately, they left Saturday and were about half way home. I got his address and his ring will be on its way home tomorrow. There’s no way to describe the feeling of finding something for someone who had probably given up all hope of ever seeing their treasure again.
There was one more hiccup getting his ring back. Brian had asked me to UPS overnight air it back to him. Unfortunately, there was a “mechanical breakdown” with either a plane or truck along the route. So, Brian had to wait one more agonizing day before his ring was back home and on his finger where it belongs.
Brian – Thank you for trusting me to help find your lost treasure.
Jim
