Amanda explained to me, two months ago, her daughter had cut her foot in the waters of a small Morehead City, NC beach. During the excitement, Amanda had taken off her long sleeve coverup shirt to wrap her daughters food on the beach. She told me that is where she thought her rings were pulled from her finger. She explained she had a group with metal detectors come out the July 4th weekend to help locate the missing rings. It wasn’t until a friend had heard about The Ring Finders on a radio broadcast and this lead Amanda to contact Crystal Coast Ring Finders. My first attempt was to thoroughly search the beach and shallow water. This beach was full of various garbage, mostly aluminum which is a nemesis to detectorist. My second day attempt was planned so that it would be during a low tide and more importantly, early enough in the morning that nobody would be in the way of my search. I arrived at 6am, just before it was getting light enough to see. I began a search from beach to water and back. Each time I would go in just above knee deep water as Amanda told me it happened at low tide that day and the deepest she went was knee deep water. I must admit my doubts of finding the rings lost in a public area 2 months prior were in my mind. I also knew if I don’t try all possible areas, I wouldn’t be assured I tried my best. The waters still produced a large amount of aluminum and each time I would try to scoop the target and dump it into my floating sifter. I was in an area with multiple targets around me when I dumped a scoopful and was about to dig again when I glanced over to see Amanda’s wedding band laying in the basket. I was in knee deep water at the time. The very next scoop raised her beautiful engagement ring!
Amanda was very close by and I called her just before 8 am to ask her to come down and help me narrow my search area because of the numerous garbage items I was digging. Amanda showed up with her daughter and at one point when she looked away, I held out both of her lost rings. She looked back and noticed in disbelief her rings in my hand. It is moments like this that make me proud to return items that have so much meaning!
