Lost gold wedding ring found, Paw Paw Lake, Michigan

Lynn contacted me about her husband’s wedding ring that fell off his finger while cranking the wheel on the their boat lift. The ring had also been Lynn’s father’s ring, so it was extra sentimental them. We discussed a time frame yesterday and I went up there this afternoon to search. I brought an underwater tube-lens contraption (for viewing bottom/etc), the usual detector, backup detectors, scoops, pinpointers and also my scuba gear. The water visibility was as bad as I expected (murky/sediment), so the view tube was a no go. The pier and lift station was a maze of metal with large metal pads on the bottom. I opted to start with detector and scoop. Found a multitude of undesirable « trash » targets, cans, nuts, bolts, coins, pier post caps, etc, etc, but no ring. Obviously, the detector can’t « see » when near the metal frame parts, posts and pads. After an hour and a half with detector and scoop, I had to move to the anticipated Plan-B, scuba gear and pinointers, for working close to the framework. I used my fancy little gear cart to bring everything out to the dock site. After dawning the gear, I went to put the mask on and CRACK (the strap fixture broke). Not really wanting to dismount the gear and get repair stuff from the truck, I MacGyver’d the mask strap with a piece of wire I had just dug up and had in the floating sifter, worked perfect, back in business. I searched and searched with pinpointers, all around the metal structures and post pads, still no ring. I was getting worried now and wondering maybe it wasn’t in the water. I noticed the pier had metal supports under the slotted walkway with a channel big enough to catch a ring. I checked all the channels, no ring. Now I was thinking about the two frame parts, that I saw from above, that had holes big enough for a ring to fall into and no way to really check.Then I thought, maybe, maybe the the last place that ring could be was actually laying on one of the metal post pads, where the pinpointer nor metal detector would see it. I started moving the inch of sand/dirt/sediment off the pads and checking that with pinpointer. On the second pad, doing the same, I felt my finger tip go into what really felt like a ring. Bingo, that was it!