Uncategorized Category | Page 588 of 647 | The Ring Finders

While camping with his wife and in-laws at P.J. Hoffmaster State Park on Lake Michigan, Josh B. lost his wedding ring in the surf while tossing a football about 30 yards from shore.   Since I love metal detecting in the big lake, I get alerts from the local weather service when there are hazardous conditions on the lake shore and I had just received one of those alerts before Josh contacted me.  There were 6-9 foot waves and dangerous rip currents for the next two days and I knew it would impossible to search before Friday morning.  Josh wondered if it was even realistic to be able to find it after those conditions.  I told him of a similar situation that had occurred at Grand Haven State park last year and that I was successful in locating a wedding ring after that storm.  If he knew where the ring had fallen off there was a good chance I’d be able to find it.  Josh took a couple hours off work Friday morning and we made the trip out to the beach getting there shortly after sun rise.  Since there is no public parking in the campground, we parked about a half mile south of the campground at the public beach and made the hike north to the State Park beach.  During the hike north, Josh asked what my success rate was at finding rings in Lake Michigan, I said 100% so far (I hoped it stayed that way!).  The waves were still a good three feet and tossed me around a little but was I able to locate Josh’s ring in about 20 minutes.

Matt gave me a call and informed me of the following  » I lost my wedding ring last weekend in about 8 feet of water as I was reattaching our water trampoline to its concrete block anchors ». I had a busy schedule and luckily the ring was lost in a private dock area, I was able to meet Matt the next weekend and search the area. It was a quick dive, truly about 2 minutes. Matt had removed the chains from the blocks and marked the area with a buoy tied to a rope. This helped out as the ring was found right next to the blocks,  if the chains had still been attached; it would have masked the tones from my metal detector. Thanks for preparing the site Matt!!!  Glad I could help out  –

Darrin

 

Rick Magyar a fellow Ring Finder called me the other day and asked for help finding a lost ring in the Grand River. What had happened is Cory V. had received a 14k gold wedding band from his grandfather who had passed away a week before. This ring was going to be used in Cory’s upcoming wedding. Cory and some friends where in the Grand River enjoying themselves on a hot summer day when just before getting out of the water he felt the ring slide off his finger. The river was about 2 to 3 feet deep with weeds and about 6 inches of mud. Rick had been out on a hunt previously and was  unable to locate the ring so he called on my help. When we arrived at the river we met Pam who’s house they were at when the ring was lost. We went down to the river and proceeded to search. While I went out about 4 feet from shore Rick was looking closer to shore than where he looked before. Rick got a hit and Dave B. verified the hit with his AT Pro, because of the muck Dave let Rick use his underwater pointer and after Rick grabbed a handful of muck the pointer continued beeping as he pulled it up to search. There it was mixed in with a handful of black mud gleaming slightly in the sunlight.

We took the ring up to Pam and she called Cory who lives out of town it turned out to be a happy day for all involved. We asked that Cory send us a close up picture holding his ring for our Book of Smiles. So watch for an update to this story in the next couple of weeks.

 Rick M on the left

Pam in the middle

Gregg L on the right

You have to keep an open mind when looking for a ring. Carl M. said he had his ring in the bottom of his kayak and forgot about it when he took the kayak out of the water. Carl called me while I was in Tennessee and I told him I could make it out there in a couple of days. Seeing that the ring was lost in a private swimming area I was not too concerned about someone else finding it. He said it was by the dock where he pull the kayak out. He figured it must have fallen out when it was turned over in about 3 feet of water and carried across the yard to the condo. After searching everywhere on the grass and in the kayak and not finding it he thought it’s time for the internet. Finding me on the Ring Finders the search began. I have built a team of detectorist my brother Doug, Dave Boyer (a soon to be Ring Finder in the Holland and South Haven market) and myself. Doug and Dave spent about an hour looking in the water which had large cement slabs with deep cracks and rocky bottom. Checked the lawn between the dock and condo and came up empty. Finding rings takes a lot of detective work and elimination. The water and grass was checked the only thing left was to look at the kayak one more time. The kayak was rolled over on it’s top and the ring fell out. Lessen learned, « always start from where the ring was last seen ».

Katelyn was to have her engagement ring and wedding band soldered together this week because she was going to be married this Friday; the only problem was she had just lost her engagement ring in Lake Michigan!  Her cousin Kim called me and asked if I could come out right away, I said, « Absolutely, I’ll be there in about 40 minutes. »   Katelyn’s Aunt Carol and Uncle Tom stayed with her in the water to mark the approximate location that Katelyn saw her ring fall off while I made the drive out to Holland State Park.  The three of them, with Katlyn’s younger cousins, Mikayla and Sawyer, spread out to form a 20′ square area for me to do a thorough search in.  At first I thought it wasn’t in the area they thought as I got no hits at all after my first pass though the area.  I went back and searched again and found it right next to Mikala on the edge of the search area; I was probably standing on it when I started my search.  It actually only took about 10 or 15 minutes to search the 20 sq. ft. area and find the ring.  That was one very happy bride to be and another smiling face for my book of smiles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last night (August 5th) while taking a long walk on the beach with my wife, I got a call from fellow jewelry recovery expert Edward Cropski. He received a call about a lost ring. He was unable to come down to the beach to search. He knew I was in Ocean City, so he called me to see if I was available. He gave me the number for Chris.

I called Chris. He said while on the beach today he took his ring off before he went into the water with his kids. He put it in the cup holder of his chair. After swimming they went home for the evening. He remembers flipping his chair over to shake the sand off.

Last Sunday I got a call from Leandro, a desperate gentleman who lost his thick and heavy gold wedding band at the beach. It was about 6.0 P.M. and he was still there and wanted me to search for his band at night. He lost it while shaking hands with a friend. They looked for it for a long time but did not manage to find it. I told him he did not need to worry because as he had not found it, nobody would, so it could wait until the next day. We arranged to meet at the beach early on Monday. I arrived there first and saw a big square he had drawn on the sand the day before. I started searching it as soon as I got on the sand. Well…. It was not quick because while searching for the band, he ended up getting it deeper. A couple of hours later on a grid search, I got a faint signal. I dug and ….bingo……….there it was….a beautiful gold wedding band.
Leandro was elated and later told me that he actually did not believe I would find it. Inside the band there are two coordinates: one, of the point where the couple first met, and the second, of the place where they got married. Afterwards I got a picture of him for the book of smiles and another one of the band. Although it is winter here, it was a very beautiful sunny day with temperature at 30 degrees C or about 86 degrees F.