Wellfleet Bay Wildlife, Wedding Band Lost, Found and Returned By Richard Browne
October 1, 2026
The last day of September was a beautiful day for a trek thru Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, something Emma and her family had done quite often. This was to be a special walk with her husband of only four and a half months. One of the first things the couple spotted was the big birds, wild turkeys, something not seen in Dijon, France where the happily married couple now reside. The sun was rising and so went the temperature. There was no need for the sweater Emma was wearing, so it was removed and draped across her arm.
Another 100 or so yards up the path and with a great view of Cape Cod Bay what could be wrong? Not only wrong, but devastating, a missing wedding band. It must have been lost in the last 100 yards, so many on the walking tour went looking all along the sandy path. As usual when a ring, bracelet, keys, or the like go missing; it must be right here, but can not be found by visual searching.
As this loss needed the recommended metal detector and someone to use it, Luke was called. Luke was working and had another afternoon engagement so he refered the request to me. I answered the call for help and with the permission from the Audubon attendants, set up a 10am search. I did not realize but a group of 6 or so family members would also be there to help visually look for the ring. Several times a ring would be dropped along the path and could always be seen with the naked eyes. I would occasionally toss a nickle into the over brush just to verify that my detector was working. It also never failed to ID the target, but no ring was found. After some 3 hours the family group had to depart, but I would stay to make the trek in the reverse direction.
The ring had to be somewhere along the path. This was verified by at least three people that Emma had the ring on her finger at the start of the trek. The path was less than three feet wide and narrower in some areas. Reasoning what might have happened, I would make my last detecting the left side of the trail as the wedding band was on the hand closest to that side. At the point were the ring was noticed being lost, I did a 180 and started back to the parking lot. This time walking in the center of the path and swinging wide to each side. Aha, a solid signal, but it was too high of a reading on my detector to be a gold ring, but I dug it anyway…it was a 1988 quarter. It was only the 3rd target I dug and the other two were just out of a need for a break from detecting. I stood up, swung the coil again and another solid signal right in the middle of the sandy path. I flicked my finger at the sand and there was the ring so many people had walked over looking for.
