Reuben called me saying that he had just lost a cross off his necklace while running on the beach in the wet sand, on the slope and in the shallow water. It was right around high tide when he called, and I was just about to eat some dinner, so, I asked Reuben if he could hang around down there a while so I could gulp down some groceries and let the tide go out a bit. He agreed, and we met at a spot at the north end of the search area around 9:45pm. He explained to me that he headed south from there and was running in a zigzag pattern from the water’s edge to the top of the slope, kind of dodging the surf as it surged in and out. I then asked how far he ran until he noticed it was gone. Well, he had a selfie that he took, at the spot we were standing, showing that he had the cross at that point. He then said that he started running from there and headed south for a good 5 minutes! Whoa, that was going to be a HUGE search area. After more Q&A we decided the most likely area was toward the other end of his run when he discovered it gone after he had jumped over a pile of kelp, but, frankly, it could be anywhere along the way. Ok, let’s start walking to that spot. I figured I’d go ahead and turn on my detector and sweep a bit while we went. I just picked a straight line on the slope about half way between the water and the top of the slope. We walked, and we walked, and we walked some more. Found a few piles of kelp, search all around them, and continued on. I hadn’t gotten one signal thus far. I asked how much further he ran, and he pointed down the beach some more. I was about to say that this was going to be a waste of time as this search area was now almost 1/4 mile long and approaching the edge of Mission Beach (the next beach south), and that I was going to have to get a lot more help to cover all this sand, when we approached another pile of kelp. Searched all around it and continued on a little ways more, when I got my first signal of the entire way. A nice solid 11 on my Equinox. One scoop and Reuben spotted his gold cross (a family heirloom that he got from his father) in the pile of wet sand I just dumped. Talk about dumb luck! We both should have bought lottery tickets right then and there. I’m not sure who was more amazed, but, we both counted our blessings on this one! That potential search area was the largest one I had ever had and would have taken me over a week to completely cover it
by myself. We found it in an incredible 20-25 minutes. A pleasure to meet you Reuben and thank you for the reward.
Well it goes without saying that you never know what kind of events may lead up to a ring getting lost. This story is no exception. On May 8th I was contacted by the best man of a wedding party. He explained that during the couples ceremony, at a bayside resort, he had accidentally dropped the brides ring onto the deck and it slipped thru the cracks and into the bay! At the time he had called I was headed out to dinner with my family for Mother’s Day and it was just about high tide. After receiving some pictures and descriptions of the area I knew this could be very challenging as the search area was located under a deck / pier that extended over the bulkhead and into the bay. I figured it would be best to wait until dead low tide as the area was in about 12-15’ of water at the moment. Around 12:30am I headed over with a friend whom was lending a hand and met up with the remaining members and guests of the wedding party. Luckily the staff at “The Reeds” in Stone Harbor NJ were awesome at helping to pinpoint the area and provide a floating dock to work from, kind of like Tom Sawyers raft, lol. They even went so far as to remove some of the mahogany decking in an attempt to locate the ring. Obviously the wedding party was devastated over this accident and all reasonable attempts were made to find the dropped ring. You could feel the obvious tension surrounding the events that unfolded and this just drove the determination to a positive outcome further! After making our way down to the dock we boarded the floating dock and paddled under the deck / pier to the approximate area. After checking for about 15-20 minutes I was able to recover the brand new never worn rose gold and diamond band!! Much to my and everyone’s relief! The ring was under some of the structural members in about 2’ of water amongst some horseshoe crabs. The bride, groom, best man and remaining members of the wedding party were ecstatic!! Another happy couple! Congratulations and here’s to a lifetime of happiness!!
