I received a message from Gary, a friend and fellow detectorist. Gary told me about a lost necklace and it was just 3 1/2 miles from my home, that he had seen on a Facebook post. Would I be willing to look for it? Of course, a lost necklace in my hometown is a given. I took the information and contacted Ashley, the originator of the Facebook post. Ashley told me the necklace belonged to her daughter, Kalleigh and Kalleigh was upset she lost it because the necklace was a gift from her Grandfather. Ashley described the events leading up to the necklace being lost on Bay View Beach, in Saco, Maine. I sent a photo of an aerial view of the beach and asked Ashley, if the areas I had marked, on the photo, were where she thinks the necklace was lost. Ashley replied yes but they had also been about another 100 feet, further south and she sent me a photo with an area marked off. In total, I was looking at an area of approximately 250-300 feet long, running parallel to the shore and about 30 feet deep, from the high tide mark to the dune grass. I then Told Ashley that I would go down to Bay View, 1st thing in the morning, when the sun came up.
I arrived at the Beach at 6:30am and admired the sun, which was just starting to rise. A beautiful scene, as always. I decided to start my search where they had been on the beach and work my way towards the lifeguard station, where Kalleigh realized the necklace was missing. I performed a grid search, starting parallel with the water. I broke up the approximately 250-300 feet by breaking the area down to 4 quadrants and slowly gridded each area. Not many targets either. Other than a quarter, there was nothing else, other than an occasional pull tab and the metal handle of a few sparklers. As I was about to finish up my 3rd quadrant, I received a signal that kept bouncing between 12-45 and 37-47. The first set of numbers indicated a non-ferrous item, most likely a dime or quarter. The second set of numbers were definitely a ferrous target. Depth on my CTX-3030 was indicating 4-5 inches deep. I then took my scoop and pulled out the sand. The target wasn’t in the 1st scoop of sand. I took out my pinpointer searched the hole with it. Once I found the target, I scooped a handful of sand and there it was, the gold necklace. I had found Kaleigh’s lost necklace. I immediately took a picture of the necklace and sent it to Ashley. Her reply was, “OMG, Thank you so much. She is going to be so happy “. Ashley and I then made plans to meet up a little later and return the necklace.
When Ashley and Kalleigh arrived at my home, I could see Kalleigh’s very large smile just beaming, as the walked across the street, towards me. Those smiles are the reason I absolutely love doing this. There is no better reward that to see pure joy and happiness on someone’s face. I then learned that Kalleigh’s grandfather had personally made the necklace and gifted the necklace to Kalleigh for Christmas, 2 years prior. This is the absolute best job in the world and on top of all the smiles, I got to see a beautiful sunrise.
