Coopers Beach Tag | Page 2 of 2 | The Ring Finders

Important Key Lost in House – Found by Intensive Search

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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Kim phoned me on behalf of a friend asking if I was able to do a house search for an important key.
I generally don’t do domestic searches for lost items purely because they can be. by necessity, very intrusive into peoples ‘space’.

Whilst conventional metal detectors are ineffective inside houses, I have a range of small coils, pinpointers and remote cameras to aid a physical search.

Kim explained the circumstances: Her elderly friend had lent their car to another elderly friend – who had misplaced the key.
It could have been anywhere from the car to inside the house, maybe in a wood shed…or, who knows?

Knowing the significant expense and hassle involved in an insurance claim, especially for an 80-something year old, I agreed.
Though it was over 100km away, the travel would largely be covered by a Pay-It-Forward recovery I had done recently.

I arrived the following morning and met with Jan, she was most apologetic as we went through retracing her steps as best we could, and I explained how I would be conducting the search.
Starting with the car, the last known point where she would have had the key, I began the systematic and meticulous elimination of areas.
With the car and driveway cleared, the search progressed up onto the deck and then into the house.

From here it was a matter of examining everything Jan had, or had potentially interacted with the previous day. On, in, under, beside, behind…

An hour later, in the bottom of a box of assorted dog leashes, treats and toys etc. a shape caught my eye.

I held up a key,  » This it? »

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Lost Kerikeri Ring Found in Car

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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Karen contacted me this afternoon asking if I was able to find a very sentimental silver ring that had ‘Just disappeared’ inside her car.

She remembered taking her ring off in the car to place it in the centre console before going to work, but when she went to put it on at the end of the day, it had ‘disappeared’.

She had searched the whole car to no avail, and in desperation phoned me to see if I could help.

I offered some likely places to look, but she had already tried those.

A few hours later, I was firing up the Ferret remote camera to search those sneaky areas inside the car that humans are unable to reach…

Late into the evening, the ring was spotted – tangled in the carseat rails.

Unfortunately the ring had been crushed by the seat moving in the rails, but at least it is salvageable.

A bittersweet victory, she had her precious ring back and is going to make an appointment with a jeweller to restore it to its former glory.

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Tiny Gold Ear Ring Found in Sand at Cable Bay.

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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Danielle contacted me after losing her tiny gold and diamond earring at Little Cable Bay, between Mangonui and Taipa.
She had spent some considerable time looking for it, but in the dry sand a tiny earring that blended in perfectly would have been virtually invisible to the eye.
I wasn’t able to get away from work for a few hours, but in this instance it worked out well with the tides.
She had sent me a photo which showed some trees lined up as a reference, so I could make a start as soon as I got there.
It didn’t take long to locate myself in the right spot and I started work, a very tedious process with a lot of interference from metallic rubbish that saturated the dry sands above the high tide line.
Danielle arrived soon after and was able to give me her best guess as to where it might be.
With a high probability location now identified, I changed up a few settings and started listening for the tiniest wisp of gold in among all the can tabs and flakes of tinfoil.
It was hard mentally processing each individual signal, digging the probable signals and flagging the unlikely, but possibles to revisit later if necessary.
About 10 minutes in, with the coil running under the surface of the loose and fluid dry sand, I got a repeatable signal only just audible over nearby rubbish.
I ran my hand through the sand, nothing was seen and the pinpointer didn’t pick it up, but I had moved the target. Was it yet another tiniest fragment of ancient drink can?
Slowly I progressively eliminated ever smaller piles of sand until there was one small heap left.
I grabbed it and slowly opened out my hand, scrutinising the grains as they fell through the slightest gap between my fingers, until resting in my palm was the distinctive shape of an earring.
Danielles eyes lit up when she realised her precious lost earring had been found in amongst several trillion grains of sand.
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Night Search to Find Lost Engagement Ring in Doubtless Bay

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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I had just returned from an ongoing search for an elusive sentimental earring in the sea at Paihia and was sitting down to dinner when the phone rang.

It was Sally, and she had lost her engagement ring at Cable Bay earlier in the day. She was very concerned as they were due to finish their holiday the next morning and head south.

This time of year the beaches are popular hunting grounds for the summer ring ‘collectors’, and time was against us.  I said I’d head up straight away.

I arrived a few minutes before Sally, and on the last vestiges of twilight started hunting under the trees where I understood they had been seeking shade – Turned out I was at the wrong trees, which highlights why it is almost essential to have the person involved on site if at all possible.

Sally and her husband quickly put me onto the correct location, and what could have taken hours – or even a no-find, was over in a matter of minutes with the wayward ring quickly returned to the rightful hand.

They were most apologetic about dragging me away so late in the evening, and very thankful that I was able to drop everything to ensure a positive outcome.  « I can reheat my dinner, you couldn’t replace your ring… » 🙂

An hour later, I sat down to my dinner, again.

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Gold Ring Found in Doubtless Bay Chicken Coop

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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I was recommended to Kim and Kevin after Kevin had lost his Great Grandfathers ring, passed down to the eldest son through the generations. His father sadly passed away recently and Kevin became the new custodian.  Understandably, the ring carries a huge sentimental attachment.
Kevin wasn’t sure where, or when, he had lost it.
He just knew that it wasn’t beside the sink after he’d finished washing his hands after working in the garden that morning.
He had a few sleepless nights before the day of the search!

On site, I retraced Kevins activities. I made note of each area of interest and ranked them as to the likelihood of holding the ring as we wandered around the property.
There were three probable areas, but I had brought the remote camera with me, just in case it got all forensic with nooks and crannies (Or « Crooks and Nannies » as I like to call them).

First up was the garden where he had been planting seedlings and weeding. Lots of wisps of wire and assorted metal with the big coil, I switched to the small handheld coil.
This was better in among the random signals, but slow going to ensure every coil sweep was overlapped to avoid missing a single square inch.

Then I headed down to the chicken run where he had spread some hay out.
Several problems were encountered in here; The abundance of metal chicken mesh in close quarters, the fact that every time I stopped to investigate a target under the hay at least one chicken adopted me as a fancy perch with foot-warming function… and, let’s just say I was glad I was wearing disposable gloves as well!

Despite the assistance in removing various invertebrates, the chickens and I did not locate the ring in the run.Spotting fresh straw had also been placed in the nest boxes, I moved outside – thankful to be vertical and chicken-free.
I worked my way through each of the nest boxes, when my fingers closed on a heavy, round ring buried under the sawdust.

I left it under the watchful gaze of the chooks, while I took my gear back to the car then called out to Kevin.
« I’ve got something of yours! »,  and led him and his wife to the chicken run.

I opened up the nest box and Kevin reached in to retrieve the ring.

It remains a mystery how and why it came off here, as it is a tight fit on his finger and the nest box was not a ‘likely’ area.
We could only assume that the strings when carrying the bales had worked it down his finger without him noticing – only to drop off as he fluffed up the sawdust.

Regardless, Kevin had now been reunited with his Great Grandfathers ring.

Job done.

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Coopers Beach Lost Key While Swimming

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
Contact:

Ring Finder – Ring Recovery Specialist…Lost ring? Lost necklace? Lost keys?… Metal Detector Service – Call ASAP 021 401626

I was at work when Heather phoned.
She had been swimming at Coopers Beach and when caught by a rogue wave, her expensive-to-replace chipped car key slipped from inside her costume.
I made a quick call to my boss to check he was okay with me disappearing for half the day (again!), and after a few hasty discussions with others arranging cover while I was away, I was on the road.
Unfortunately, I work about halfway between home and Coopers Beach, so had a half hour drive each way to get the gear before continuing north to the site.

I arrived just before low tide to see Heather and her mother doing ‘The Walk’ that I have seen many times. Heads down, wandering aimlessly whilst staring intently at the sand. Occassionally scuffing their feet at something that could be a key, but disappointingly turning out to be a black pebble or bit of shell.

Thankfully, Heather had a video of where they had been swimming, showing a distinctive clump of seaweed and a pattern of shells in the foreground. From this I was able to define a reasonably tight arc that the key might be in but people often drift to one side or another. The distribution of seaweed along the beach showed me which way the current was running so I marked the likely maximum up-current limit and would work downcurrent. It was now just a matter of passing the coil over the key. Miss it by 2 inches and I could walk straight past it.
Recoveries take a huge amount of self-discipline. The hardest are when they stretch into the night, the rain begins to fall and the hours continue to slide past…and that’s just on land.
But today was calm, sunny and a beautiful location.

I set up a grid on the wet sand at the edge of the water as I waited for the tide to drop.
I was digging the odd coin, bottle cap or ancient copper boat nail. You must verify every target in this game, a trashy area will sometimes have you checking over a hundred potentials.
The beach here was away from the popular areas so thankfully relatively devoid of false targets.
Dry land completed, I started to move out into the water.

About thigh deep, just deep enough to get inconveniently soaked by waves, I picked up a solid iron tone under the loose sand and shell.
The key was about 10cm down in this very mobile, almost fluid, shell mix and it took a couple of bites with the scoop to lift it out of the hole. I held it up to Heather with a big grin, and waded ashore.

…Then headed back to work to catch up.

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Gold signet ring lost at Cable Bay – Found in the Sea

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
Contact:
Ring Finder – Ring Recovery Specialist…Lost ring? Lost necklace? Lost keys?… Metal Detector Service – Call ASAP 021 401626
Second recovery for the year and hot on the heels of Andys ring recovery at Tauranga Bay (which you can read below)
Shortly after Christmas, Caitie was enjoying her holiday at Cable Bay wearing a special gold signet ring gifted to her for her 21st with the family crest that dates back a few hundred years engraved into it.
Tragically, she lost the ring in the waves, and gave it up as lost.
Almost a week later, she contacted me.
She had been buying a couple of « make myself feel better » rings at a local jeweller in Mangonui, who suggested Caitie get in touch to see if I could reunite her with the treasured ring.
The beach at Cable Bay is a steep gradient ocean beach. It’s very dynamic being composed predominantly of small broken shell fragments and anything dropped has potential to sink through the layers quickly with the wave action. After a week, having Caitie be able to meet me on site would be critical to push the odds into our favour.
Unfortunately she was slightly  delayed getting to the beach, so I got started with the information I had to hand.
I cleared the area as described by Caitie, then started expanding out – focussing on the low tide mark and wash as the tide was due to turn and start coming in.
Some 20 metres further along the beach, knee deep in the water, I got a faint tone. Could be one of the thousands of flecks of aluminium foil that inhabit that beach… or a deep ring.
With ring finding, you have to confirm every single target. It’s not uncommon to finish a search for a ring in the sea with 50+ can pull tabs, bottle caps and old copper coins in the pouch. (any detected rubbish is bagged to help clean up the environment – and avoid digging it next time)
It took several scoops to catch up with the ring in the fluid sand at a depth of nearly 40cm.
I secured her wayward lost gold ring and continued hunting casually for the next few minutes while I waited for Caitie to arrive.
The reaction when you return a presumed lost for ever ring is always worth far more than the melt value to me.
There were screams, clapping hands and jumping with joy from Caitie.
Priceless.
Find Lost Ring Coopers Beach Mangonui Metal Detector Doubtless Bay Find lost ring
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Gold Wedding Ring Lost in Sea at Coopers Beach, Doubtless Bay – Found

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
Contact:
Ring Finder – Ring Recovery Specialist…Lost ring? Lost necklace? Lost keys?… Metal Detector Service – Call ASAP 021 401626
Four days ago, while on holiday at Coopers Beach, Mary-Ellen lost her wedding ring of 32 years while messing around in the shallows. Her friend messaged me asking if a recovery was possible… Mary-Ellen and her husband were able to meet me on site which always greatly sways the odds in favour of a recovery.
The following morning, I drove up to meet them at Coopers Beach to try and find her lost ring.
As her husband marked out the boundaries of their swimming in the wet sand, I checked the dry sand where they had been sitting. Nothing found (other than the usual can pulltabs and bottle caps). So I moved down into the area where they were swimming and started to search the marked areas…as Mary-Ellen and her husband decided they might have gone a bit further down current – and extended the search area again.
I don’t mind people changing their minds mid search as it influences where I direct my efforts to maximise the chances of a successful recovery.
Ultimately, after covering 1,300 square metres to 90+% confidence, the tide chasing me out and the sun taking its toll, I had to call it a draw. A « draw » as the beach had won this time but I was going to be back.
That afternoon I was chasing a pair of hearing aids on a shelly trash-infested beach in Kerikeri – Unfortunately after six hours they still eluded me, possibly taken by tide or located elsewhere. Can’t always win.
The following day saw me driving a three-hour round trip down to Whangarei to recover Joshs lost wedding ring at Ngunguru (His story is below).
Yesterday was a rest day!
Despite four days having passed since she lost the ring, I was back chasing Mary-Ellens lost gold and diamond wedding ring again this morning… Confident it wasn’t likely to be in the original search area I followed the falling tide down and expanded the search area outwards, both along the beach and further seaward. Assume Nothing, Trust No-One, Check Everything.
About 10m outside the original search boundary, I got a faint but positive tone in the headphones.
.
They were in the process of packing up the tent to head home when Mary-Ellen got a text
« Hope you’re still in Coopers. I have something for you… »
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