Time Capsule found
Tracey contacted me about a time capsule that she and her father had buried back in 1997. Inside were various « treasures » from various members of her family, including photos and letters from loved ones now deceased. Tracey knew the approximate location and had attempted to find it a year ago, but, without a metal detector, she was just guessing as to the exact spot and came up empty. The container was supposed to be a small steel box, maybe a foot squared or so. She was uncertain as to the contents other than the photos and letters. One of the interesting parts of this is that it was buried in a remote area of a public park! No telling if it was still there or not. Parks get relandscaped from time to time or maintenance crews might accidentally dig it up or bury it further, so, this was anyone’s guess.
We hiked to the spot which turned out to be just above a drainage ditch. The ground was on a slope, very rocky, and covered in leaves, branches, and other debris from the eucalyptus trees and various trash from park goers over the years. There wasn’t any obvious sign of where it might have been buried, so, I began my search systematically from one end of the search area to the other. Not a big area, maybe 10 X 20 feet, but, LOTS of target sounds, both ferrous and non. I started with the ferrous since it was supposed to be a steel box. After a couple of promising sounds that turned out to be chucks of pipe, I couldn’t find any large targets with my E-trac/ NEL 15″ Attack coil combo. I started in on the smaller ferrous targets. Just junk iron. Next was non-ferrous with similar results at first. I finally got a low conductive signal next to a tree. It was reading 12-09 on the E-trac. That normally is a wad of foil or similar. It didn’t seem like a large target, but being next to the tree it was hard to tell for sure. I started digging…..down a foot and still there…….got out the hand digger…..poked down a bit more and hit something that sounded hollow. Hmmm, could be, or maybe just a pie tin. Kept clearing the dirt and roots away until I could find the edges of the object and got the top cleared off. Yup, looks like a metal box to me! I carefully worked my digger and my fingers around the edges of the box until I could just reach under it. Ooops, nothing left of the side of the box. My fingers just went into a cavity. Not a good sign, as this indicated to me that the box had gotten flooded and rusted out. I finally worked it out of the ground and my suspicions were correct. Even though the box had been wrapped in plastic, the bottom was almost completely gone along with most of the sides. Since the lid was in pretty good shape, I flipped the box up side down on the ground so we could carefully pick through the contents without them spilling all over the place. Most items were water damaged, but, some may clean up. The photos and letters were wrapped separately in more plastic, but, they were waterlogged as well. The photos didn’t look to good, but, the letters might clean up. Tracey has a bit of work to do in that area! With careful rinsing and drying, they might survive. Even with the damage, Tracey was very happy to find the time capsule and recover the contents. I was happy to be a part of it and thank you for the reward.
Matt and Tiffany were walking the beach at low tide watching the sunset. Matt had intentions of proposing to Tiffany by presenting her with a engagement ring. It is a very flat beach and they were well away from the waterline. Matt came up with an idea to put the ring under a shell, so when Tiffany picked it up, she would find the ring. Even though they were away from the waterline, a small surging wave came up washing over the shell and the ring. The ring immediately disappeared. As soon as the sand gets saturated it is actually like quick sand, the ring sinks out of sight. Most times it doesn’t go very deep at least for the first few days. They spent a couple hours searching frantically as the tide was coming in and darkness overtook them. After returning home, Matt went online to research buying or renting a metal detector. That is where he found theringfinders.com locating my contact information. We met for a few minutes the next day at the next low tide. After hearing a detailed story and checking the past tides, I set up my grid pattern.. Matt was very positive about the location of the loss. My concern was the size of the setting may help the waves move the ring great distances. After 4 hours with no success I had to abandon the search till the next low tide.. The next afternoon I started 3 hours before low tide working an area south of the yesterday’s search. Then reworking the original location finding very few targets. Exhausted with the tide coming in, I was making plans for the next day’s search. My plan was to return with my Excalibur detector and search waist deep at the next low tide. It was dark, so just before leaving I went 100 yards. north swinging randomly. That’s when I got the sweet sound of gold.. Five or six inches down I scooped the beautiful white gold diamond ring.. I sent a photo of the ring in my hand to Matt in a text.. He said he almost dropped his phone when he saw the picture. We met the next morning at Starbucks. Tiffany and Matt came together . I had put the ring in a jewelers ring box with a sea shell. I gave it to Matt and he gave it to Tiffany.. This was the first time she had seen the ring other than a photo.. What a beautiful day, I will never forget.. Thanks to Matt and Tiffany for sharing the special moment with them.. I love my service.. Ring Lost Thurs. 10-27-15 — Ring Found Sat. 10-30-15 — Using Minelab CTX3030 metal detector 
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