White Gold Wedding Band Lost in the Ocean, Found and Returned North Myrtle Beach SC
Thursday night about 9 pm I got a text from Kayla saying, “Hello! Sorry for the late text but I just found your phone number online – I lost my wedding ring today at North Myrtle, would you be able to help us try to find it tomorrow?” I text her back asking her to call me and included my phone number. I didn’t hear anything else until this morning when I woke up to the following voice mail. “Good morning, Jim, my name is Kayla. I had texted you last night. I thought you could possibly help me find my ring that I had lost yesterday on the beach. We are staying at the Tide Master Condos here in North Myrtle Beach and the ring was lost yesterday while I was kind of in very very shallow waters. I was with my daughter, and it just slipped off my finger. So, I was hoping maybe you could help us. I don’t know it might be lost forever, but if you wanna give me a call back, thank you.” I checked yesterday’s tides and saw low tide was around 11 am and high tide a little after 5 pm. Today’s tides would be around noon and 6 pm. It was already a little after 10 am when I called her, and I asked her two of the three more important questions. She already told me how deep she was, so I asked about what time she lost it, and did she know the area. She responded she lost it about 2 pm and she knew the area. I told her I’d be there about 11:30 pm. Two pm put it right about mid-tide. We’ve had some horrible surf conditions, with strong sea breezes, and rip currents. I knew that a lot of sand would have been pushed up on the beach, making any targets buried deeper than normal.
I actually arrived a little early, and as I made my way out to the beach, I called her and told her I was there. We met on the beach, and she showed me the suspected area she lost her ring. I started an east/west grid search just below the slope on the beach working perpendicular to the beach. I was finding very few targets and as expected they were deep. She told me her ring was white gold with diamonds. Ladies’ white gold can range from low single digits to low teens depending on size, on my Equinox 800. After a couple of hours, I had detected the entire lower portion of the beach all the way out to the south end and wasn’t finding her ring. I decided to change course and started a parallel grid search starting from my perpendicular grid at the bottom of the slope working towards the high tide line and covering the entire area behind the resort. At some point, a young gentleman came up and started talking to me, who I learned was Kayla’s husband Matt. Matt told me he had a metal detector but hadn’t brought it with him. In the process of our conversation, I asked him what he remembered and what time he thought she lost it. He said he thought it was around 3:15-3:45 pm. Good info because that would put it a little higher on the slope. Kayla had joined us, and we talked a little bit and they both went back up to their spot on the beach. A little while later I got an iffy and faint signal that was jumping from 9 to 13. Ok, I’m in the zone of white gold. I dug four to five big scoops of sand out of the hole, each time checking the hole. Which the hole had grown to close to a foot deep before I finally got the target out of the sand. I spread the sand out with my foot and ran the coil over the area. Boom, I had a solid 10 reading and looked through the sand. There it was, just lying there waiting to be found. I hollered at Kayla who didn’t hear me the first time, so I yelled again. When she heard me and turned around, I held her ring up in the air. She flew down the beach! I asked her what her ring looked like, and she explained it as I held it closed up in my hand. Then I showed it to her and asked, “Look like this?” Her happy tears started flowing and I got a huge hug. Matt followed shortly and shook my hand. I heard loud applause coming from the upper beach from the people that had been watching me for the last 3 hours. A few ladies even came down to see what was going on.
Kayla and Matt – So happy I was able to find and return your lost treasure. Thank you for trusting me to help.
Jim
On my way home from work I received a text from Habib. He was very anxious to see if I would be able to find his wife’s beautiful diamond earing she accidentally lost at a large family party the day before. He sent me some pics and I was relieved to see the size, due to the fact many diamond earrings are extremely hard to locate. We agreed on a mutual time to meet later in the day, and for him to bring the other earing so I would be able to scan it with my metal detector, which helps tremendously, knowing exactly what tone to listen for. With that information I am able to block out most of the other tones I will receive in a backyard setting. Once on location I met with a gentleman who showed me the entire party setup, and the main areas Saba, Habib’s wife had spent most of the time that day. I decided to begin the search, as Habib was going to be about another 15 minutes due to some heavy traffic. I had quickly covered an area where the tables were set up, especially where Saba was sitting. The yard area was quite huge, and there were many food stations, and activities going on throughout the day. Once Habib arrived I listened to the other earring, and was quite pleased with the solid low tone it gave off. With that information I was able to move quite a bit faster, due to the fact that not may signals of that type would be present. I of course would check anything fairly close. I had changed direction after the first location was done, simply due to the fact the foot traffic would be moving in the direction I was working. I made one pass, and just after I turned to make another one, BINGO, my metal detector emitted a tone that I was almost certain was Saba’s missing earing. After moving the grass around a bit, there it was pressed down even with the dirt, just out of human sight. Luckily there was no damage to the earing. I looked around to find Habib, and he had walked way over to the neighbors house, where there was valet parking, and another possible area the earring could have been hiding. When I showed Saba’s earing to him, he was it total shock, as this recovery could be labeled “a needle in a haystack” Once again all parties involved knew the tiny details to narrow down this vast search area, to just the areas where his wife had spent most of the day.
