Buried Car Keys Lost .. Santa Monica, CA. .. Found in Sand

Annenberg Community Center.. Jenifer Buried her car keys in the sand while she went surfing then couldn’t get back to the location in the dark.

After helping Marie find her pendant lost in the sand at Malibu Lagoon State Beach, I stopped by a beach at the north side of Santa Monica Beach. I wanted to search the low tide where a ring had been lost in the water last month.
I was just finishing my search when Jenifer came running up to me in the dark. She was panicking because she had buried her car keys in the sand under her beach bag while she went surfing. Upon returning to her car with her belongings, she realized her car keys were still buried back on the beach somewhere, two blocks away from her car.
I told her I would help her if she could get me back to the general location. Easier said than done, there were absolutely nothing to reference where she had been, just flat dry sand. I picked out a place to start a grid search explaining that I could not just randomly wander the large search area. I was going to be like mowing a lawn. Once I finished one part of the search area, I could confidently move to the next section. I estimate that it takes about a hour to search a basketball court size area. (approx. 90’x 50′)
Jenifer started her own grid shuffling her feet in the sand. I was tempted to break from my grid and wander in random directions but I know it could be disastrous. Patience and persistence is the the rule. Sometimes I tell people that watching me grid search may drive them crazy. I need to overlap each swing of my search coil. The metal detector coil only can find metal under my 11 inch coil. You won’t believe that some people do not know this.
After about 45 minutes I got a good signal that turned out to be Jenifer’s car keys. No tow truck, no expensive car key replacement, now we can both get home. Jenifer was a happy surfer lady. It was a special pleasure to meet her and help her retrieve her keys from the sands of Santa Monica Beach.