Jewellery Recovery Tag | The Ring Finders

Lost Silver Ring in Tauranga Bay Sand Dune – Found by the Ring Finders!

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
Ring Finder – Ring Recovery Specialist…Lost ring? Lost necklace? Lost keys?… Metal Detector Service – Call ASAP 021 401626
First recovery for 2022.
Andy was enjoying New Years Eve on the beach at Tauranga Bay near Whangaroa Harbour, and as he kicked back to make himself comfortable in the loose sand of the dunes, he felt his jandals slip off his feet. Over the hours, they got progressively buried in the steep and mobile dry sand dune.
But this isn’t a story of a jandal recovery.
In the pitch black, as he sifted through the sand looking for his now buried jandals, he felt his precious silver ring slip off and vanish into the sand.
He gave me a call today just as I was getting prepped to leave for another lost ring in the sea at Cable Bay an hour further north.
I made an earlier start and detoured out to Tauranga Bay en route.
Searching the area was a matter of trying to maintain tight control of the coil in a controlled slide down the dune, followed by a hard three steps up- slide two back, slog up to the top again. Great exercise in the midday summer sun…
I cleared the initially indicated area, and as Andy wasn’t exactly sure where he had been, I started to open up the search pattern – keeping a half eye on the time as I had to catch low tide up in Doubtless Bay for the other lost ring recovery. If necessary I could return to this one, but time and tide waits for no-one.
Halfway down the dune, about 6 or 7 metres from where Andy thought he had been, I picked up a bright silver tone.
The scoop went in, the dry sand flowed out through the holes like water leaving a lovely bark-textured silver ring behind.
Holding it up to Andy, it was met with a huge grin!
Then into the car, and off to Doubtless Bay for recovery number two… leaving Andy to continue to look for his jandals buried in the sand at the new location where I had found the ring
.

Silver Ring Lost While at Work – Found in Kerikeri Orchard

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)

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

Just after sunrise this morning I was meeting Sinead at a local commercial orchard near Kerikeri, with the objective of finding her silver ring lost the previous day.
She had taken it off and put it a pouch with her phone while planting new vines. But later in the day, discovered it had disappeared.

Fortunately she had a good idea of which rows it would be in, although a dedicated group of fellow workers on hands and knees had failed to find it yesterday.
On arrival at the block, deep in the orchard, Sinead recounted how she had taken her ring off and put it in the pouch with her phone at the start of work.

We started the search in the row where she had taken the phone out of the pouch to answer a call.

Going was very tough with lots of chatter from buried offcuts, wire staples and similar chaff that you find on any established commercial site, however the ring would (should) be a good signal and I was able to move reasonably fast.
As the coil wiped the dew off the grass it gave an excellent indicator that I was getting 100% coverage. Who needs GPS!

First row finished after about 45 minutes with only a couple of too-close-to-call possibles investigated.

We moved onto the second row, I was suddenly now conscious that this orchard covered several square kilometres…

Sinead mentioned that she noticed she had dropped her headphones here…or maybe that row over there – I took her word for it, they all looked the same to me!
I started in the area where the headphones were found, nothing. Opened the search a bit wider and…a good repeatable signal.
I parted the grass and saw the silver edge of the ring pressed into the topsoil.
Leaving it there, I beckoned to Sinead to come over.
« Oh, Wow! », as she excitedly picked up her ring from where it fell and put it back on her finger.

 

Gold and Diamond Ring Lost Swimming at Tutukaka 5 Weeks ago – Found.

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
Ring Finder – Ring Recovery Specialist…Lost ring? Lost necklace? Lost keys?… Metal Detector Service – Call ASAP 021 401626
When I hear about a lost ring, I do whatever I can to get it back to the owner,  This has become something of a ‘domino effect’ this month.
Liz was enjoying a swim at Kowharewa Bay in Tutukaka when she felt her ring slip off her finger and disappear into the water.
Efforts to visually locate it at the time were unsuccessful, so she posted on Facebook in the hope someone had/would find it.
Five weeks later, I was in the area delivering another ring back to a happy owner, and since I was so close…Well, it’d be rude not to have a go.
The bay was relatively shallow with a fine silt bed, perfect to swallow rings as soon as they touched the bottom. In amongst the Eagle Ray feeding holes were scattered scoop marks. I knew another trusted detectorist had had a go in the shallows, although he had been unsuccessful. I decided to concentrate my efforts wide of his earlier search, as I could always re-search his area once the incoming tide forced me in closer.
The water was calm, warm and clear which made a very pleasant change from my normal water searches in surf. I was enjoying not having to use the scoop, and instead just sinking down onto the seabed and fanning the silt away with my hand, to find yet another fishing weight, or pull tab off a can.
Accompanied by a school of fearless and inquisitive juvenile fish, I systematically searched the bay in the area where she thought she lost it. The pouch slowly filling up with lead and tabs along with assorted ancient car keys and bits of brass from boats that had passed by over the years.
About 2 hours into the search the phones whispered a bright, clean tone that (nearly) always tells me my search is over. I once again sank under the surface and wafted away the silt – my entourage of followers darting in instantly for any unlucky invertebrates lifted up into the water. As the cloud of silt and fish dispersed, there was the unmistakable outline of the edge of a ring in the bottom of the depression.
I picked it up, and the diamonds flashed in the sunlight, I discovered diving masks leak when you give a huge grin…
It was another fortnight before I could hand Liz her ring, completing a bizarre sequence of connected ring reunions:
I originally travelled down to Tutukaka to recover Merryns ring, lost in the surf at Whangaumu Bay.
After meeting Merryn at Tutukaka later to hand the ring over, I decided to have a go at recovering Lizs ring nearby that I’d read about on Facebook.
Two weeks later, and I’m back in Whangarei to hand Liz her ring, but I travelled down early and successfully recovered Karens ring, that had been shared on the local Metal Detecting Facebook group.
So, one recovery request leads to three separate recoveries and a trio of very happy people, none of whom have met, but all with a connection through TheRingFinders.