Barnegat Light Tag | The Ring Finders

  Brandy called asking if I would be able to come to the beach and help her and her daughter find a necklace she had lost earlier that day. Since I wouldn’t be able to get there until well after dark, I asked if she knew exactly where it had been lost. She assured me they had marked the entire area with sticks and were confident it had fallen out of a pocket inside her beach bag.
After a long day, I finally arrived at the beach that evening. I had called Brandy with my ETA, and it worked out perfectly that she was able to meet me there. As we walked out to the search area, I was impressed with how well they had marked the location. Even in the dark, it was easy to identify exactly where to begin.
Brandy explained that she had taken her necklace off, placed it inside a pocket of her beach bag, and sometime later it must have slipped out into the sand without anyone noticing.
We marked out a search area of about 20 by 20 feet and I began a slow, methodical grid search. Because it was such a fine necklace, I had my detector’s sensitivity turned up very high so I could hear even the faintest signals. Partway through the search I got a very weak signal and was convinced I had found the necklace. Instead, it turned out to be the metal tip from a makeup brush.
After searching the entire grid without success, I decided to change my approach and perform a cross-grid search from a different direction. As I passed back over the same area where I had found the makeup brush tip, I heard another very faint signal. This time, after carefully scooping the sand, there it was—Brandy’s beautiful necklace.
Brandy and her daughter were absolutely amazed. We had already covered the area once, and they were beginning to lose hope. Fortunately, patience, experience, and searching from a different direction made all the difference.
It’s a great reminder that sometimes the first search isn’t enough. Never give up.