Sewer Clean Out, Surf City, LBI, recovered by Edward Trapper, NJ Ring Finder

What a wonderful weekend it was going to be, fantastic weather, great company, car is all unloaded, and just sitting on the outside on the deck, having a cold drink, enjoying the ocean breeze, when a voice from inside hollers, “we have a problem” !!!! Linda went inside to see what I might be, and it was most peoples nightmare, a clogged toilet. One would think this is an easy fix, but unfortunately it was not. After 2 days of trying to plunge the clog, it was now backing up in the downstairs laundry slop sink. A local plumber on LBI come out to assess the situation, unfortunately without locating the outside cleanout he was not able to finish the job. She called the guy he recommended who handles much lager jobs, and would be equipped with a 200′ snake. Once again, without the location of the outside cleanout he was not able to do anything either. That’s where I come into play. After 2 days, Linda called me wondering if I was able to locate a sewer cleanout. My concern was, if it was all plastic my equipment would not be helpful. After a short conversation, I headed out to try and help. After looking the entire plumbing situation over, I received many possible signals, in the area the cleanout should be. After quite a bit of digging, the cleanout was located, and now Linda could have the plumber return to snake out the entire line. This was a “stinky” situation to start of the weekend, but ended up on a positive note.

Andrew called asking about locating his wedding ring he lost in the bay the night before. We talked for a while and he was positive of the location the ring popped of while catching a football. He said it was in chest deep water, and he had pictures of exactly when it came off. I met him at the house a few hours later, got my gear together, and we walked out to the spot. Well, the water was quite rougher and deeper than it was the prior evening, but we continued the search with no luck, as he stood in the exact spot he said it flew off. After 2 hours we threw in the towel, and decided to resume searching in the morning at low tide. I brought my weight belt to hold me down, and a buoy to mark the spot. After about an hour I got a strong signal that turned out to be his ring. Turns out it was closer to chin/shoulder deep where it was lost, and low tide with no boat traffic allowed me to get his ring in my scoop in roughly 5′ of water. Definitely one of the more challenging recoveries, due to the water depth, and not being able to see my equipment on the bottom. Andrew and his wife were totally amazed. 












it went once we were searching the right area.


