metal detect in water Tag | The Ring Finders

Brian Rudolph, Lost Item Recovery Specialist (Land, Water, Sand, Snow, Leaves, Cliffs, Houses & Vehicles) Will Find Your Lost Keepsake! Call ASAP (301) 466-8644!

I received a call from a gentleman named David who found my contact information on the wonderful international directory of metal detectorists called THE RING FINDERS. He was calling me on behalf of his daughter Ana. She was out swimming with a college friend in Lexington Park, Maryland (near California, Maryland) when her very special ring slipped off of her finger and traveled to the bottom of the Chesapeake Bay. The two of them searched for a very long period of time but their efforts led to no avail.

This ring that Ana was wearing was no ordinary ring. She had made it herself out of sheet metal during a summer camp class program up in Boston, Massachusetts when the young lady was only sixteen years old. This handcrafted piece of jewelry became a part of her everyday life. She not only traveled across country several times with this it, but this very sentimental object was worn all over the world as she visited numerous countries afar. When it was lost in the water, Ana was devastated.

4 days after the loss of the ring, I headed out three hours to that region of the Chesapeake Bay to see if I could recover this very special item for Ana. On Day 1 of the search, Ana and her father stood on the shore and gave me some general directions as to where the young lady thought she lost the ring. It turned out that there were no landmarks for me to line up with and Ana didn’t remember how far out she was in the bay. This made my search attempt extremely difficult. I metal detected for two hours with no success to report back to them as they waited on shore until the sun disappeared below the horizon. We had to eventually call it quits until the next morning.

On Day 2 of the search, I requested that Ana walk out with me into the water and show me the approximate area where she thought she had lost her beloved sheet metal ring. The one thing she did remember is that there was a certain dip in the sand and also there were shells lined up in a certain area. The only problem was that Ana wasn’t sure how much distance she and her friend were from east to west (the area parallel to the shore). I ended up searching approximately 50 yards (150 feet) from left to right and approximately 40 yards (120 feet) away from shore. It was a large area to metal detect!

I set up a very special grid system in order for me to keep track of the areas that I had completed searching in the water, and the sections that I still needed to scan. An hour and a half went by but I never gave up. I knew that the ring was going to give off a unique signal if I came across it. The reason for this is because the ferrous item would probably show a little sign of rust knowing that it had been in the water a few days and the fact that it was not made of aluminum or precious metallic properties.

When I still could not find the sentimental keepsake, I asked Ana if she could bring her college girlfriend (who drove across country with Ana from their California school to Maryland) out to the site so that she could offer her own opinion as to where her friend may have lost the « halo ». Ana’s friend agreed to be picked up and while she drove over to her place, I continued to search for the missing sheet metal made ring.

Shortly after Ana’s friend named Poss had finished showing me the area where she thought the two of them were swimming when the ring slipped off Ana’s finger, I enjoyed the most wonderful moment of surprising the two ladies and Ana’s dad with the news that I had in fact found the missing ring! I had actually recovered it while Ana drove to pick up her friend, but I didn’t reveal the happy update until after I got Poss’s opinion as to where she thought it was lost. This way I could tell them where it was actually discovered out in the bay verses where the two of them thought it may have settled to the bottom. It turned out that the two of them were quite a bit off the mark due to how naturally one’s memory changes as the days go by. When I got a particular signal that showed up on my detector screen as possibly containing a combination of iron and steel, I was quite hopeful that I had finally discovered what I had been looking for for so very long. Indeed, it was the right target! What a feeling of elation that was to be able to recover such an « object of love » out there in that vast body of water!

The three of them were in complete shock! David was truly blown away by the news and Ana displayed such a beautiful expression of emotion as I handed her extremely special hand-crafted piece of jewelry back into her possession! She was so very grateful for my successful efforts and one could tell how Poss was so very happy for her college pal now that this very important keepsake had returned to its rightful owner!

Before we all said our goodbyes, I led us in a moment of giving thanks to the Lord for blessing us with such a successful search and recovery operation! What a memorable day that was for me and even more so for the young lady who cherished that very special handmade keepsake that had been on Ana’s finger since she was just sixteen years old!

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