Lost Gold and Diamond Wedding Band Honeymoon Island State Park, Fl. …Found!!!
Steve Thomas
Dunedin Ring Finder lostringdunedin.com
“It’s only lost until I find it!”
Lost a ring or other metal valuable at the beach or in a grassy or sandy area? Jewelry slip off of you while working outside, playing with the dog or swimming? Please contact me ASAP at (843) 995-4719 or @dunedinringfinder. I offer a FREE metal detecting service, reward optional but appreciated upon recovery!
Recently I saw a post on a local social media discussion page where a visitor to Honeymoon Island State Park named Jeff had lost his wedding band in the water in the Oasis Beach section. I also noticed that several people who had responded to Jeff’s post had recommended my services. I reached out to Jeff on the post and he messaged my page with the loss details. Jeff and his wife Kim live about two hours away in the Villages but he was able to provide me with some details about the loss location including some photos. Jeff explained that he was in the water about 10 to 15 feet right of a dune line tree and felt his ring slip off in waist deep water.
The next day I arrived at the loss location with my wife Jan as my “direction” assistant, fired up my Minelab Equinox 900, and began yet another water search for the “needle in the haystack”. A water search is especially challenging when you don’t have the person who lost the ring with you on site to provide an even more precise location but Jan and I were convinced we were in the right spot. I searched for about three hours, ever expanding out from where I began, using shore markers to try to not go over the same ground twice but because you can’t grid search in the water like you can on land, this is almost impossible. I dug a few trashy targets while I searched because when I’m searching for a gold ring, I dig every target. At almost the three hour mark and slightly north of where I began my search, I hit a promising target. After several sandy scoops, out popped the same white gold and diamond ring in Jeff’s photo! I messaged Jeff a photo and simply said “Found It!”. Obviously Jeff and Kim were thrilled and amazed that I was able to recover Jeff’s ring but to be honest it never ceases to amaze me either because no matter how much time you spend with good equipment, you still have to pass close enough to detect the item you’re looking for. Many call that “luck”; I choose to believe there is a little “divine guidance” involved. We set up a time about two weeks later when Jeff and Kim would back be in the area for the return.
Jeff and Kim, thank you for the generous reward and for trusting the Dunedin Ring Finder to find your ring. I was so blessed to have found it!
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.
I was at a family picnic when I received a call from Anthony, stating that he had just lost his beautiful cross on the beach, somewhere in the area they were sitting. It was early afternoon and I told him I would be able to swing by soon, and to secure the area so nobody else came and setup their beach things in the exact same spot. Anthony assured me that was not a problem because they were there for the entire day, plus the fact he was very anxious to get his cross back where it belonged around his neck. We spoke about the events leading up to the mishap, that’s when he told me about the big creator he and his friends had dug that day in the sand where they were sitting. He said they had all been digging around looking for the cross for quite a while, but were positive it must be there somewhere, because he had spent the best part of the morning there, digging. It was then I asked them to please stop digging otherwise the cross may get buried to deep for my machine to pick it up. When I arrived I could see the creator from the dune walkover, and it was pretty big. Sure enough, it was close to 4′ deep, and roughly 6′ in circumference. I hopped in, scanned the entire bottom and the walls, without even a squeak of a sound from my metal detector. Next, I scanned the piles of sand they had pulled out of the hole with no luck either. I asked them to pull the piles down lower, to an average of no more than 10″ higher than the regular beach level. Once again, no luck anywhere, so only one more place to look was the bottom, after they pulled about 10″ of sand out. Now, with all the sand moving, I assured that the cross was positively NOT in, or anywhere around the crater. So, back to the drawing board, where he mentioned they were tossing a football on the tide line earlier, and that his friend did tackle him there. I told him I really wish he mentioned that earlier, as the tide had been rising very quickly. Once he showed me the area, the cross was in my scoop within 2 minutes. If Anthony told me that one detail of the day, my search would have started there, and all the sand moving could have been eliminated. Lost of detective work is needed to rescue items from their hiding places.
Eileen called just as I had gotten out of the dentists office, wondering if it would be possible to come and search for her I-Phone that slid off the roof of a car, and landed somewhere alongside the roadway. She explained that she had put the phone on the roof of the car, and said goodbye to her company. Forgetting the phone was on the roof she went inside, and her company drove off. The following day she realized the phone was missing, and realized what had happened. She contacted her friend hoping he had picked it up prior to leaving the night before, which wasn’t the case. They had finally decided it must have slid off the car roof and landed somewhere on the side of the road. Using the find my phone app. they found the last known location of the phone before it died, where they searched for 4 days without any luck. That was when she decided to call in a professional recovery expert. We made arrangements to meet on the side of the roadway that afternoon. It was there Eileen went into more detail about HOW important this phone was, as nothing was backed up to the cloud, including over 6000 pictures, that were absolutely unreplaceable. This area was right in front of a big housing complex, that had manicured grounds with fences and pristine walking paths. I was praying it didn’t fall off there as the grass cutters had recently cut the lawn, and it would have shredded it to bits, had they ran it over. I instructed Eileen to go into the management office, explain what happened, and ask if possibly the phone was turned in. While she was in doing that I covered the entire area on both sides of the road, and all the landscape, with no luck, just as I had figured. Standing back, looking in the opposite direction, the curve in the road looked ever so inviting of an area, for a phone to slide off the roof. I walked back covering everything from the road in about 10′ with no luck. Then I turned around and continued back along the tall weeds, and wood line. Right along the weeds, just inside of where the mowers cut, I received the loudest broken signal from my metal detector, that I know ever to familiar, would be her cell phone. Sure enough BINGO!!!! I had her phone. I decided to record the moment when I returned her it, and needless to say, what a heart filled experience it was, reuniting Eileen with over 6000 photos, which covered many years of her life prior, to this almost tragic mishap.