Kai Iwi Tag | The Ring Finders

Wedding Ring Lost in Sand at Glinks Gully, Dargaville – Found.

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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I was just about to head out for a kayak when the phone rang…
Nick had been staying at Glinks Gully near Dargaville with his young family for the last week, playing daily in the sand dunes and playground.
It wasn’t until later he realised his wedding ring of only 4 months was no longer on his finger – Could I help?

While Glinks was outside my regular area, I offered to try and find a detectorist near by but with my near 100% hit rate, Nick decided he wanted me to do the job.

The kayak came off the car, the detectors went in, and I started on the 170km, two and a bit hour journey…

Nick was already onsite and greeted me warmly, he was very keen to recover his lost ring and having read some of my success stories on my page was upbeat about a positive result.

Before I got the gear out, I did my usual walk and talk – Looking at the scene, drawing on my Search & Rescue tracking and Clue Processing experience and asking what may have appeared to be rather odd questions, but all building the behavioural profile of Nicks actions leading up to the loss. I isolated two high probability areas, if it wasn’t there I would start on ‘the rest of the world’ as I refer to anything outside the indicated search area.

With the machine in hand and Nick in tow, I started on the first area. This was a playground with a deep base of soft, golden fluffy sand where Nick had been pushing his son on the swings. A ring dropped here would have vanished below the surface instantly.

First run under the swings gave a $2 coin, then on the other side of the swing a solid « Lost Wedding Ring » tone 🙂

I shook the sand out of the scoop to reveal the ring, and with a big grin tossed it over to Nick – His face was in disbelief as he looked down at his wedding ring sitting safely in his hand.

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White Gold and Diamond Ring Found at Kai Iwi Lakes

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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Sam and his wife were spending some time at the beautiful Kai Iwi lakes in the Far North of New Zealand.

His wife had waded out to the edge of the drop off for a swim, and when she returned to the car, realised the ring was missing.

Sam met me on site, and we discussed areas, marking out the search limits and I waded out with the marker floats.

I had just dropped the second float when the ring, an absolute stunner by the way, made itself known just in front of me!

One of the fastest recoveries yet, and inside the initial search area for once …Just.

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Gold Ring lost at Kai Iwi Lakes – Found!

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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Back at Kai Iwi for the second time in three days for another lost ring. Thanks to Halley sending me a detailed video clip taken on the day, I was able to save him the three hour trip back up from Auckland.
I was a little concerned seeing evidence of metal detector activity from the last couple of days, and despite their tracks walking right past the ring, they had missed it!

This where the experience and skills of Ringfinders comes in, with patience and a disciplined approach to ensure 95%+ coverage of the loss area.

As a result, just after sunrise I had the ring in the scoop. I sent a photo of it to a very relieved Halley, followed by a quick swim to celebrate, and headed home.

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Ring Lost at Kai Iwi Lakes – Found!

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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Got a message from Geoffrey that he’d lost his wedding ring while swimming at Kai Iwi lakes, near Dargaville, in the north of New Zealand. While this was out of my regular area, there was definite urgency as the lakes are heavily patrolled by holidaying metal detectorists at this time of year. So coffee in hand, I lurched out the door the following morning at 4:30am for the two and a bit hour drive across to the other coast to meet them when the gates opened at 7.

Kai Iwi lakes are real gems, classified as perched dune lakes, these unique features have warm, gin clear water with no organic tint on a white silica sand base, definitely one of the more pleasant places to hunt. Certainly worth a visit if in the North of New Zealand.

Geoffrey, really nice chap, had called in a sick day for work and was settling in for a long stressful day of waiting. We discussed how it had been lost – that old, old story of sunblock and cold water, along with his movements in and out of the water.  He waded out with me so I could get him to visually line up some reference marks he remembered at the time of loss.

Based on his recollection of « looking at that yellow boat », and « That hill over there » coupled with « I was about this deep…About here »…I dropped the PLS (Point Last Seen) marker float.

Originally I had planned in my head to use the spiral search pattern, although went with a linear search as the water was so clear I could save the hassle of an extra line and see the scoop drag marks on the bottom.
Switching on, I started the first line running out to deeper water, before turning and coming back in towards the beach, this alignment allowed me to use some very easy markers both on land and out in the lake to ensure a good coverage. I had just turned and started the second run when I heard what I wanted.

I gently shaved the surface of the sand off with the scoop and as I lifted it I could hear the ring bouncing around in there. I got Geoffreys attention, then held the scoop up with a big smile and gave it a jiggle. His eyes lit up in disbelief when he heard the rattle.

I held the ring out to him as he waded over, his grin getting progressively bigger and the « No Way! » comments getting louder as he got closer, I suggested there was maybe still time for him to get to work after all  🙂

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