Car Keys Lost and Found in North Myrtle Beach SC
Joe Denton, the mine lab distributor in North Myrtle, called me asking if I wanted a search for some car keys. Sure, I’m always up for a search. Joe sent me the contact information, and I called Ben. Ben explained that his friend had lost his keys the night before on the beach. I told him I’d be there in 30-40 minutes.
As I’m driving to the beach, it starts pouring down rain; I’m good as long as there’s no lightening. When I arrived, Tristan met me at the beach access and explained that he and his buddies were out sitting on the beach. He said he was sitting in one of the low back beach chairs and figures the keys fell out of his pocket. He set me up in the area, and I started a normal grid search. I knew the keys would stand out loud and clear when I waved the coil over them. An hour and a half later, and moving my grid lines out farther and farther both north and south, there were no keys. Tristan had mentioned that he and some other fire fighters were down here for some R&R from Virginia. I asked him if these were the keys to the car that was going to get them back home, they were! He said he had contacted a lock smith who wanted $400.00 dollars to make a new car key. Tristan had also been in contact with his parents to overnight a spare key so the group could get home.
Tristan finally walked over to me, with a couple of his buddies and let me know that they weren’t over as far as I was searching, and really appreciated me trying. This was one of those special serendipity moments. As we were walking off the beach, I noticed the life guard setting up for the day. I walked over and asked him if someone had turned in a set of keys, as I’m asking him, the beach patrol was driving up in their beach cart. The life guard said no, so I asked the beach patrol. She said as a matter of fact, someone had. As she pulls the keys out of the glove box, I saw Tristan’s face light up. Right place, right time, right person and Tristan had his keys back. Sometimes things just happen, and this was one of them.
Tristan, you and your buddies stay safe, and have a safe trip home.
Jim
I received an email from Omar stating, « I just realized this morning that I lost my wedding ring. It probably happened at Toronita Beach yesterday evening. The tide was high and I was boogie boarding. Please call me if you think there is a chance that you can find it. » It was close to midnight when I read Omar’s plea for help and I answered immediately wanting to encourage and instill some hope. I always start by asking some very pertinent questions like…What time of the day were you in the water? Did you feel your ring come off? How large of an area did you swim in and how long were you in the water? How deep was the water where you were boogie boarding and how far out did you go? Thankfully Omar responded early the next morning and gave very descriptive answers to all my questions regarding the how, when and where! And one key piece of information about their boogie boarding was he and his daughters were trying to see how far they could ride the waves all the way to the wet sand. With that knowledge and the fact they were in the water at « high tide » put the target area in a much easier part of the beach to metal detect, especially at low tide!
Amy emailed me to see if I could help locate her husband Matt’s custom made white gold wedding band, which was lost as he swam in front of their Hopkins Pond Camp, in Clifton, Maine. Despite very clear water and minimal bottom silt, the search area was challenging due to being strewn with rocks and boulders. Upon exhausting my first tank of air, I began to fear the ring may have slipped into one of the many deep crevices and out of detector range. Shortly after starting my second dive, my Minelab Equinox 600 located the ring in 9 feet of water, buried in a thin layer of silt. A portion of the generous reward received will be donated to The Landing Place in Rockland, Maine to help their efforts to combat homelessness of local teens and young adults.
I was contacted last night by Andrew who had lost his gold signet ring whilst mucking about with his mates on a riverbank , arranged to meet this afternoon, and after a stroll through water meadows we arrived at the riverbank the ring was lost on , my Equinox 800 soon hit on a steady repeatable 17 , a quick fingertip search and there was Andrews lost signet ring , who was amazed at the speedy recovery, as he was pretty certain the ring had come off in the water after been dragged into the river by his mates .
