Mark Rubey, Author at The Ring Finders | Page 21 of 23

After seeing me on the news, Bob called me and asked if I could find a cache of jewelry at his home. After discussing the details and the problems of trying to use a detector in a house, I agreed to meet there and give it my best. Bob e-mailed me after my visit and wrote out the whole story so I’ll let him tell it in his own words……

I was checking the lost and found ads on my local Craig’s List, when I come across an ad that says a ring was lost at the Del Mar Dog Beach and that they were hoping to hear that someone had found it. Thom had been playing with his dogs along a river that emptys into the ocean and while throwing something in the river for them to fetch, his ring went with it. He, his wife, and relatives searched but couldn’t find it. I contacted Thom and told him that I would be happy to search for it if he’d like me to. He gave me the details and I planned to get there right away before someone else might happen upon it that might not know that Thom had lost it. It had already been a few days since the loss so The tides had changed a bit in the mean time. When I arrived, I was dismayed to find the tide was way too high for me to search. I tried around the area but I couldn’t get close enough to ground zero to do a thorough search. Low tides were expected in a little over a week so I told Thom I’d be back to do it right. Fast forward 10 days and I made it back at a nice low tide. After an hour and a half or so and progressively deeper water, I finally hit that good sound in about 18″ of water and 8′ out into the rushing river. No sand or muck in that section! All river rock! I figured it would be on the surface but nothing was visible. I dug down several inches and pulled out his ring. As happy as I was to find it and get out of that current, Thom was much happier with the news. Until he came to the house today to pick it up, he was still incredulous that it was found. It was my pleasure to find it and also to meet you. Thank you very much for the reward.

Gina called me to ask if I was available for a ring search at Coronado yesterday. i said that I was and asked for more information. She said the ring belonged to her boss’s mother-in-law and that she or her boss would have to call me back with details. A few hours later I get the call and an e-mail with a Google map showing the location. It seems that the visiting mother-in-law lost the ring in the dry sand the previous day and had left on a flight back home so we had to just work with directions and a map. Knowing that the beach in question gets hunted very often, I knew I had to hot foot it down there right away or risk losing it to another detectorist so I loaded up the truck, grabbed the wife, brought my 4th hand information, Google treasure map, and headed over. I started at one end of the search area marked on the map and headed toward the other boundary. A few hours later, I’m beyond the search area and getting hungry for dinner. The sun had already set and it was getting a bit nippy. Ok, one more pass……Yes! That sweet sound finally hit my headphones. I called with the good news that night and left a message that I was 99% sure I had found their ring. After contacting Gina the next morning and getting a more detailed description, we confirmed it was THE ring and arranged to meet. Thank you for the reward! It helps keep this service up and running.

      A little team work was needed for this one! Faiviola called me with her tail of woe. She and her husband rented Kayaks at La Jolla Shores beach and on their return voyage, their kayak overturned in the surf. Her camera, sunglasses, and engagement ring were all dumped into waist deep water. They managed to recover the camera but the sun glasses and ring eluded their frantic search. They live a good 3 hours north of here and had to go back home minus a treasured token of their love for each other. Faviola decides that she’s not willing to give up quite yet and finds the Ring Fingers site and gives me a call.

      After sending me a Google map and some directions to the loss site, I head down there at the next low tide which was coming up very soon. It was an afternoon low tide and not a very low one but I wanted to get on it right away as that beach is hunted a lot. Three hours later, no luck. I call Faviola back and tell her I’ll return later that night at a minus tide and try again. I arrive at about 1:00 am or so and in the darkness, I can make out a figure walking out on the beach in the area I want to search. I could tell by the movements that, hey, that’s another detectorist out there! I head over to see if he may have found Faviola’s ring. He says no, we chat a little bit and we go our separate ways. I search farther out in the surf and expand the area a bit but still no luck. Earlier, during my day search, I ran across a guy who said he lost a pair of Ray Ban’s in the surf and wanted to know if I’d found any. I hadn’t but told him I would keep an eye out and got his number. At about 4 in the morning my sleep deprived brain remembers these sunglasses and so I head back over to Colin, who is still close by detecting. I ask him if he found any Ray Bands, and he says he found some sunglasses but doesn’t know if they’re Ray Ban’s or not as he didn’t have a light. I flick my light on and see that they’re not Ray Ban’s but then I get to thinking that maybe they might be Faviola’s. I ask where he found them and he pointed to an area that was out of my described search zone so I figure they must not be hers. We talk a while exchange phone numbers and I asked him to contact me if he finds the ring or knows someone who has.

       I head home tired and sleepy and faced with calling Faviola and giving her the bad news. I said that I would keep it on file and talk to club members, and others I know who detect that beach, to be on the look out for this ring. The next day, I get a call from Colin that he thinks he found it! He went back to the area where he found the sunglasses and concentrated a search there and got that sweet sound! I check out his posted photo of the ring he found and it matched the photo I got from Faviola. Outstanding!  My next call with Faviola was much more fun than the previous one!   

       We all arranged to meet the up coming Saturday (today) to reunite Faviola with her ring. It was a pleasure to meet her and her husband and to keep the ring story going. Thank you very much for the reward (which I shared with Colin)  to keep this service going. I also want to give a big thank you to  Colin for his important role in this recovery. It was his honesty, integrity, and determination that made this reunion possible. Who says you can’t make friends on the beach in the middle of the night?!

That’s Colin on the left, Faviola, and yours truly.

Juan called me around 5pm as I was driving home and asked for help finding his fiancee’s engagement ring. It seems she was talked into going in the surf against her better judgement, and her ring slipped from her finger in thigh deep water. When I arrived, I met the couple and they showed me the approximate search area. At that point the tide had been coming in for about an hour since it’s loss but I figured I’d give it a try anyway. After searching for a couple of hours and high tide approaching, I called it a day but told them I’d be back the next afternoon at low tide. They are to be married soon so failure was not an option. Added to that was the fact that they were leaving town and heading back to Houston in two days! I made it back to the site about an hour before low tide and after contacting Juan, began my grid pattern in the wet sand and out into the shallow surf. I thought I had found it a couple of times but the signals turned out to be other targets mimicing her ring. After about 45 minutes to an hour another strong « gold » sound hit my headphones and sure enough, it was this beautiful ring you see here. Juan got to make the fun phone call to his fiancee and we both enjoyed the moment. Now that we got the ring back, you’re officially engaged again! It was a pleasure to meet you both and thank you for the reward.

I was driving over to pick up my sister, niece, and grand niece to take them to the airport when I get a call from Alex asking for help finding her husband Luke’s wedding ring. Seems it slipped off his finger at the beach while he was shaking out a towel. They noticed it missing right away and hadn’t left the spot so I figured this would be a quick and easy recovery. Being a bit short on time, I hot footed it back home, grabbed the detector, and headed over to their location. I was only able to search for 1/2 hour before I had to leave and make my airport run. I figured that would still be plenty of time….ha….it never works out that way! That ring wasn’t about to give up that easily. I left and promised to be back in about an hour and a half or so. When I came back, they were still waiting there patiently and I resumed my search. I crossed my previous pattern and expanded it a bit but still no ring. I then started searching across the other side of the sidewalk and even up into the ice plant. Did I mention that all the concrete was steel reinforced? It became pin pointer time along the edge of the concrete where it met the sand. Still no ring but I found an Ike dollar coin! My first in years. I then got back on the big detector again and expanded the search area in the dry sand. Made just one more pass to the west and « bingo » a nice big shallow hit. Sure enough, it was his ring. A happier couple you will never see….even though it was getting dark! Nice to meet you two and thank you for the reward.

This is a combined effort of mine and Stan Ross’s. Stan got the initial call from Matthew about a ring he lost at Coronado beach in San Diego. It was supposedly lost within 5 ft of a certain fire ring within a group of 8 fire rings in a big square pattern. Due to a miscommunication of some sort, Stan search 4 of the rings without success only to find later that it was lost at a different ring. Since Stan lives almost 100 miles from that beach, he called me and asked if I would be interested in heading over and giving it a shot since I was fairly close by. I said sure, but in the back of my mind I’m thinking « oh boy, a fire ring! » (not). Sure enough, when I get there and start hunting (the proper ring this time), it is just carpet bombed with nails and other debris all around the pit and out several yards. To make it worse, the fire ring itself has steel reinforcement in the concrete so hunting up next to it would need to be relegated to the pin pointer and scoop. After several hours, coil and setting changes, and hand scooping around the fire ring, I almost gave up but I continued a grid pattern out farther and farther from the ring. At about a radius of 20-25 feet away I get another multitarget tone with readings all over the place. Every now and then a good « gold ring » reading would poke through so I figured, what the heck, scoop and see what it is. My detector said it was only 2″ down so I just took a shallow scoop of sand but didn’t find anything. I next took a full scoop and started to shake out the sand. First thing visible was a screw top, then a melted piece of aluminum can, then a new condom still in the foil wrapper, and then at the bottom was a gold ring! That baby was hiding real well but the E-trac managed to sniff it out even with all that extra junk trying to mask it. The inscription matched so I knew I had Matthew’s ring. I contacted Stan and Matthew and since Matthew lived out of town, I got his shipping info so I could mail the ring to him. That is always a great phone call to make! I was only able to photograph the ring so you’ll just have to use your imagination to see Matthew’s smile! Thank you Matthew for the nice reward and thank you Stan for the referal. I owe you at least a good meal so think of a place! Here’s Matthew’s ring…

Katie called me right from the beach where she had lost both of her rings after taking them off to apply skin lotion (if I only had a dollar everytime this happens, I could buy my own island!). After a frantic search by her and her husband, they found one of the rings but the small platinum band eluded them. I met them a short time later to do what I thought would be a very quick recovery. I should never think that as it just seems to jinx me. They never left the area which was only 8′ squared but that little ring wasn’t ready to show itself that easily. A quick scan told me that there was quite a bit of  junk in the sand too. Unfortunately, small platinum reads the same as foil and other tiny junk sounds so this was going to be a bigger challenge than I originally thought. After moving all their beach gear to the side, I got to work listening to the faintest sounds and removing anything that set the detector off. After about 15 minutes, I got a real faint, scratchy sound and figured it was just a piece of foil and scooped it to get it out of the way. Lo and behold, it was the ring! About 7-8″ down in a pile of sand they they had sifted earlier in their search. It all turned out well as the smile indicates. Glad to meet you and thank you for the reward.