Lost ring in sand at Daytona Beach, Fl……Found!
Jan. 1st, I received this comment on one of my ring search stories. Rich wrote, « I believe I lost my ring on the beach approximately 50 yards to the right–facing the ocean–from the end of the Oceanview parking lot wooden walkway. It may have slid off my finger when I shook out my wife’s towel. It is a simple gold Florentine wedding band with « Marla love Oli 1974″ engraved on the inside. By some stroke of luck if anyone finds it, please notify me. Thanks, Rich » So I sent Rich an e-mail and asked him my usual questions, like: « What day and what time of the day were you on the beach and shook out your towel? » And « When can you meet me and show me the exact place where you were on the beach? » And, « And it sounds like you are not exactly sure that you lost it on the beach! » Rich’s response was « I am sorry, but I forgot to mention that I am in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area and was vacationing in Florida when I lost my ring. »
Thankfully Rich was able to give me precise details about where they were on the beach and what the area looked like. He even sent me a link to a google map with a pin of where they were when he shook out their towels. One of his descriptions of the beach indicated that there was soft sand and a long row of seaweed close to where they were sitting. That is what it looked like on Dec. 26th–the day after Christmas. But when I arrived at the beach, 9 days later, it was totally different looking. Sometime between Dec. 26th and Jan. 4th we had some really big waves with extra high surf. Enough to take a good 3 feet of sand off the upper beach area. There was literally no soft sand, except way up on the dunes. So I set up my 4 flags in the target area and looked for 4 hours and no ring. I did find lots of other targets–185 to be exact! Old crusty, green coins, fishing weights and all sorts of items. I sort of figured the ring would not be there after so much erosion and made plans to come back the following Sat. to look again. When I arrived on Saturday, the tide was a bit higher than I expected and I wound up searching higher up the beach and after digging more green coins and fishing weights—to my surprise up pops Rich’s lost gold wedding ring! I could hardly believe it was still in the same general area after all that erosion. I determined that a mans gold ring is quite different than a coin in that it does not slide and move around like a coin would. As the waves wash over it, back and forth, it tends to go down because of the hole in the center.
Rich was thrilled to hear that I found his ring and I was able to mail it to him the next week. All told, I searched 5 and a half hours and dug 185 targets, while looking for Rich’s ring. And it was so worth it!! Lost your ring? Call ASAP!
Mike McInroe, in sunny Florida
Jared wrote, « Hello! I wanted to reach out to let you guys know how grateful I am for Mike McInroe! What a blessing he is. Our lost ring story begins 33 years ago when my mother was pregnant with me. Due to the swelling she wasn’t able to wear her wedding ring anymore and being from the poor midwest, she felt awful not having her ring on and being pregnant. Despite their financial situation my father came home one day with a new, larger ring so she would have something to wear while she was pregnant. It wasn’t much but it meant the world to my mother! She decided while she was pregnant with me that one day she would give it to me or my spouse to wear when we were expecting our own. 33 years later, that day finally came. While she was visiting us for our baby shower in Orlando from the cold of Minnesota she brought the ring to give to my wife and to share that story with her. Heartbreakingly she never got the chance. The day she decided to give it to my wife we were all fishing off our dock in the canal. My mother was wearing the ring on her pinky finger and when she went to cast the rod–she dropped her precious ring of 33 years into the muddy water. Needless to say my mother was heartbroken– as was I for her! I searched in the water for an hour or two, to no avail, bringing up bucket after bucket of mud in a hopeless search. Meanwhile my wife was laughing at me–having no idea why in the world I would be in the water and having no idea about the ring or the family story. We did not find the ring and my mother flew home to Minnesota heart broken. (A few weeks later she bought and mailed us a ring that looked similar, feeling it was all she could do.) I was determined to find that ring! In my search to figure out how to build a pump and dredge system to dredge and sift the mud, I found theringfinders.com while searching for « How to find a ring underwater. » I emailed Mike on a Friday morning and by that evening we had a time set for the following day. The next morning I explained to Mike how the ring had been lost 4 weeks prior and showed him the dock and where we thought it might be. He said a little prayer as he climbed down the ladder into the canal and began his search. About 20 minutes later we heard the wonderful buzzing of his metal detector, picking up a strong signal. A couple of muddy scoops later and with a huge grin on his face, he pulled the ring out of his muddy sifter. Mike was an amazing spirit and a blessing to come and find our lost ring. We had our baby just a few short days after finding the ring and I can’t wait to surprise my mother when she comes down to meet the baby and to find out we found her ring–the ring she had been holding for 33 years!
