beach Tag | Page 19 of 33 | The Ring Finders

I was metal detecting on Sunday morning with a friend at Huntington Beach at about 5:00 in the morning and took a break at 11:00 to get a snack. I saw that I had a few missed calls, so I checked my voice mails and called back. Veronica answered the phone, and told me that her mom Anna, had lost her diamond ring the day before at Nicholas Beach, about 80 miles away just north of Zuma Beach. Five minutes later, I was on my way. Once I got off the 10 freeway in Santa Monica over an hour later, I hit Pacific Coast Highway. Sunday beach traffic was quite challenging. An hour later I met up with Veronica. I followed her down to the beach and met Anna and her husband. What a nice couple! They showed me where they put the ring into a chair pocket the day before, and thought it was lost in that area in the sand. I worked the grid pattern and worked with the detector down to the water’s edge, but no signals. I hoped that the previous night’s high tide hadn’t bur  ied the ring or swept it out to sea. I asked Anna to retrace her steps when she left in a hurry because the high tide was coming in and covered most of the beach with waves. I worked the detector in between the rocks and got some large iron signals. Then I went over her husband’s matching ring to see the sound it was creating. I detected a few more minutes between the beach and the stairs and I got a crisp, loud signal. I said, « this sounds promising! » The next thing I knew, the ring was in my scoop. I handed it to her husband and he handed it to Anna, who was overwhelmed with joy. They had been happily married over 20 years and her ring was custom made, so it was extremely sentimental. It was a 3 hour drive home in Sunday beach traffic, but the looks of happiness and gratitude on their faces made it all worthwhile. It was a pleasure to help such a great family.