Lost Ring Recovered in North Dakota.
On Wednesday, July 17, I received a text wanting to know if I traveled to a very distant location. I told them that I didn’t know for sure, I would have to look on a map. This was a request from a fellow coworker of a family member. So, I told them that I would do it. I took off and made it to the location by 7:00 PM. my concern was to have enough daylight to make things a little easier.
They had told me that the caller’s husband had been concerned about losing his ring, so he took it off and put it in a compartment on his jet ski. As you know that non-moving jet skis have a little stability issue and was pushing off from a dock and the jet ski rolled over. The compartment that held the ring popped open and the ring fell out. While it was a terrible incident, it was a blessing that it happened in a location that was only in 3 1/2 feet of water.
I went into the water at the location described and as you can imagine a boat launch that has been in operation for many, many years had debris from those years. A bottle cap or pull-tabs here and there, fishing weights, boat trailer parts and the many other items that you would think would be associated with well used boat launch. It was a much more difficult hunt then what I was thinking. The things that were going right were that the location was a small area, and the water was shallow in that location. There was small and medium size cobble or round rocks on the bottom that was making scooping a signal very difficult. What I was thinking was going to be a 30-40 minute turned into a 2-hour recovery.
I had brought 2 detectors with me, a Minelab Equinox 900 with a 10-inch coil, and a Garrett AT Pro with a small D coil. After hunting for an hour and a half, I decided to switch over to the AT Pro to help discriminate the different targets. This move was my saving grace. It allowed me much more control over the targets and pinpointing those targets was key. After about another 30 minutes I found the ring. What a beautiful sight it was to see it in my scoop. A white gold men’s wedding band, just like described.
Another Happy ending.
Turns out – I guess I do go out that far after all, who knew….
Happy reunion
I had to sneak into one photo.
OK it was a 5 1/2 hour drive one way.
I also have a God daughter that lived along the route, and I could make nervous that I was checking on her.
Life is so good.
Its a beautiful afternoon in one of New Jerseys finest beach towns, Seaside Park. The oceans were calm, winds light and variable, which made for a perfect day of shell collecting. Dylan and his daughter set out to do just that. Unfortunately all the absolutely beautiful shells they had gathered together, just couldn’t make up for what had just happened. They were down at the very bottom of the tide line, by the drop off, picking up just one last shell, when Dylan decided to rinse off his hands and call it a day. At that very moment he watched his ring slip off his finger, and drop into the sand, just as a wave was rolling in. Even thought the ocean was as calm as we will experience here, Dylan had absolutely no luck over the next two days locating his beautiful wedding ring. When he called me and told me it had already been two days, and that it was just about dead low tide where his ring slipped off, I didn’t have a good feeling about the recovery, at that moment. What he did have in his favor was the fact that it had been dead calm, and was going to continue that way for the next few days. I told Dylan I would be on the beach for the next low tide which was day 3 of his ring being lost on the bottom of the ocean. I was out at 4 AM scouring every inch of the location he had marked with his phone in google maps, with not even one signal. Unfortunately I had prior obligations the next 2 days and would not be able to return until the following morning low tide. It was 5 AM or so, and here I am wondering around in the ocean again, but this time in about thigh deep water my machine sounds off a perfect low tone that you can tell almost in an instant was Dylan’s ring. I missed it in the first scoop, then BINGO !!!! I had his ring after 6 full days in the ocean. Believe me friends, this situation almost never exists in the state of NJ, but luckily for him it did that week. I messaged him asking for a detailed description, because all we had mentioned was white gold in our other conversations. I was pretty positive this was his ring, and the pictures confirmed that. I texted him pics and he was in total shock. We agreed to meet a few hours later for the monumental return.
