It took a month, but lost wedding ring in Pismo Beach is home.
Around Aug 15 2015 I received an e-mail through « The Ring Finders » from a young man named Matt asking if I posted any of the rings I find? I replied that I don’t due to the large amount of scamming replies I have received when I did list some of the found treasures on « Craig’s list ». I did let Matt know that if he could give me a brief description of what was lost and a general area where lost I would take a look for it. Matt lived 150 miles away and could not take me to the area where he thought he had lost the ring, but he did send me back a pic from Google Earth with marks showing the area of the beach he had been playing catch with a football on near the high tide line. This photo was instrumental in helping me find the ring which turned out was in that area, but due to the tides and wave action had sunk almost 13″ deep in the surf.
I spent over 40 hs. over the course of the next three weeks looking for the 14kt white gold wedding band, I along with a few other local detectorist I had let know about it were looking hard for the lost treasure. The good low tides were happening in the early morning and as usual I was following the tides, so at 3 AM with a nice buttery smooth sound in my headphones I got a smile on my face and the cold of the surf and fog that surrounded me were quickly forgotten, only getting a good scoop of sand between the waves was on my mind. I like to operate with a « one shot, one kill » attitude when raging cold surf is hitting me and the dark of the unknown is surrounding me.
I did it « one shot, one kill » I had the target in my scoop and walked out of the waist deep surf thinking, « this just might be the ring I had been looking for ». I knew I was just on the edge of the targeted area…more in the water than I thought it might be, but as an avid long time beach hunter I know how much things move in the ever changing sand & surf. Once I had a light on it I knew right away it was the ring that Matt had lost. After returning home and cleaning up the night finds I sent an e-mail to Matt with pic asking if this was his ring since it did match all the descriptions he had given me right down to the proper size. In a mater of minutes I received a phone call from Matt just astonished that I had found his wedding ring, he thought it was lost forever, he then went on to tell me how he and some others had looked for the ring along with a detectorist that day it was lost to no avail.
Matt had also just received some more good news from his wife, he was going to be a father again for the second time so his 4 yr. old son was going to have a playmate. To top that all off it was him and his wife’s 9th wedding anniversary that week so with me letting him know his wedding ring was found a new baby on the way…. it was a good week for sure.
I met Matt yesterday afternoon and returned his ring and got that big smile of happiness pic that comes from getting back a lost treasure with so much meaning behind it.
