NZ Tag | The Ring Finders

Lost Ring Found in Plantings – Russell, Bay of Islands.

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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I have a couple of people for whom I have found lost rings, not once but twice…
Paul is one of them.

I got a call from him saying he’d done it again!

I had previously found his ring almost exactly two years ago on the Russell beach, this time he’d lost it while working on planting some shrubs and it could have been in one of two locations.

The first was where he’d been trimming and clearing a well established patch of succulents – lots of potential nooks and crannies for a ring to drop down into, or hang up. I gave it a quick search without getting ‘down and dirty’ with the pinpointer before checking out what the second location looked like.

This alternative spot was a much larger area, but relatively open and I could close this off quickly with a very high probability of detection. If it wasn’t here I could then return to the original and devote the rest of the time going through it inch by inch.

This garden bed was raised up about 5′ from the road, and Paul had been planting, weeding, spreading bark and throwing garden waste across and down onto the truck deck, there was a possibility the ring may have come off and traveled across the road, in the direction of a steep bank.
I’d worry about that option later!

Starting at one end, I systematically made my way along the plantings until, under a small tussock, I saw the edge of a partially buried ring as the coil passed over it and triggered.

A quick TXT to Paul to let him know his lost ring was safe, again – and some relief on my part that I didn’t have to spend a fair few hours grubbing around up to my armpits in succulents at the first location.

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Lost Ring at Tokerau, Found in the sea

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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Back up to Tokerau Beach, NZ, for a wedding ring in the tide this time.
Nathan was playing with his daughter in waist deep water, throwing her up and catching her.
As he released her, he saw his wedding ring come off and drop into the water. They searched for some time before accepting the ring was lost.
Back on shore, Nathan took a bearing and paced out an approximate distance to where he thought it was- then gave me a call.
I arrived for the evening low tide, waded out and got to work to find his lost wedding ring.
The sand leveled out below low tide mark, so « waist deep » went out about 50m or so – A huge potential area.
I had searched the indicated area by the time failing light and tide forced me out. Regrettably I advised Nathan that I had been unsuccessful, with nothing more than a handful of lead sinkers and rusty hooks in the pouch.
But I don’t walk away easily…
Up at 4am, I was back in the tide just after 5 – sharing the shallows with the dorsal fins of a dozen Rig sharks, focused on their own search for crabs as the night gave way to dawn.
I reviewed the search area of the previous day and decided that I was generally happy that had the ring been there, I would have likely found it.
I decided to extend the search area.
After about 2Hrs using various search patterns, I got a distinct ‘double thump’ of a shallow target, some 20m from the original area.
I lifted the scoop, sifted the sand out in the water and heard that ‘jangle’ that tells me – Job Done.
I think I woke Nathan up when I phoned him, « I’ve got something of yours here… »
It didn’t take him long to get down to the beach!
If you lose an item at the beach, make a note of where you are. Line up two landmarks, even better, line up another two at right angles to the first. Then give me a call, and I’ll do my utmost to get it back to you.
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Lost Gold Bangle at Tokerau, Found with Metal Detector

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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Cayla was enjoying the summer playing with her young daughter in the shallows at Tokerau Beach,  soon realising that the special gold bangle had slipped off her toddlers wrist.

Her partner did all the right things by marking above the high tide mark where they were on the beach and called me straight away, time is always against us with ocean recoveries…

As soon as I got his message I gave my apologies to family, loaded the kit in the car and headed off on the 90km drive to Doubtless Bay.

We arrived at the beach only to find that out of the available 13km of beach, a family had parked a half dozen utes right on top of ground zero. Cayla persuaded them to relocate one of them in a prime area so I could search.

A few false starts with beer can pull tabs and a couple of longline fishing traces (removing several hooks out of the sand in the process) and I had reached the utes.

I changed the direction of the grid to start working parallel to the vehicles to maximise coverage before we needed to ask a little firmer if they wouldn’t mind shuffling along a bit.  On the first run at the outer line of the first pattern, I got a clear and shallow signal.

My fingers dipped into the wet sand and lifted the tiniest most delicate gold bracelet.

I turned and held it up to Cayla and Scott who were a few metres away, smiles all round.

 

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Gold Ring Found in Doubtless Bay Chicken Coop

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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I was recommended to Kim and Kevin after Kevin had lost his Great Grandfathers ring, passed down to the eldest son through the generations. His father sadly passed away recently and Kevin became the new custodian.  Understandably, the ring carries a huge sentimental attachment.
Kevin wasn’t sure where, or when, he had lost it.
He just knew that it wasn’t beside the sink after he’d finished washing his hands after working in the garden that morning.
He had a few sleepless nights before the day of the search!

On site, I retraced Kevins activities. I made note of each area of interest and ranked them as to the likelihood of holding the ring as we wandered around the property.
There were three probable areas, but I had brought the remote camera with me, just in case it got all forensic with nooks and crannies (Or « Crooks and Nannies » as I like to call them).

First up was the garden where he had been planting seedlings and weeding. Lots of wisps of wire and assorted metal with the big coil, I switched to the small handheld coil.
This was better in among the random signals, but slow going to ensure every coil sweep was overlapped to avoid missing a single square inch.

Then I headed down to the chicken run where he had spread some hay out.
Several problems were encountered in here; The abundance of metal chicken mesh in close quarters, the fact that every time I stopped to investigate a target under the hay at least one chicken adopted me as a fancy perch with foot-warming function… and, let’s just say I was glad I was wearing disposable gloves as well!

Despite the assistance in removing various invertebrates, the chickens and I did not locate the ring in the run.Spotting fresh straw had also been placed in the nest boxes, I moved outside – thankful to be vertical and chicken-free.
I worked my way through each of the nest boxes, when my fingers closed on a heavy, round ring buried under the sawdust.

I left it under the watchful gaze of the chooks, while I took my gear back to the car then called out to Kevin.
« I’ve got something of yours! »,  and led him and his wife to the chicken run.

I opened up the nest box and Kevin reached in to retrieve the ring.

It remains a mystery how and why it came off here, as it is a tight fit on his finger and the nest box was not a ‘likely’ area.
We could only assume that the strings when carrying the bales had worked it down his finger without him noticing – only to drop off as he fluffed up the sawdust.

Regardless, Kevin had now been reunited with his Great Grandfathers ring.

Job done.

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Lost Ring at Russell Beach Found for Christmas

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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Dec 21st, 2017

I received a call while at work from a very upset lady, the usual story of a slightly-too-large ring and the sea.

The previous day she had gone for a morning swim, and returned to discover she and her ring had parted company.

I knew the beach in question is a very mobile shingle and notorious for ‘swallowing’ rings so time was of the essence. It already had a two-tide head start…

Next low was in two hours, so I cashed in some of my leave and headed away in order to catch it.
An hour and a half and a car ferry later, I arrived on site. Looking at the steep beach angle, coupled with recent wind and wave conditions I could only realistically give her a 50:50 chance of finding it.

After a quick walk through of the timeline and reenacting the whats and wheres leading up to the loss, I marked out the area of highest probability and started searching between the tideline and the waist-deep point where it dropped away to deep water. Figured I’d do the hotspot first before getting the wetsuit on!

A lot of litter signals from can tabs and so forth caused several stops to listen carefully and determine if it was the ring… all were discounted for one reason or another.

Then, on the third line a strong clear tone and the scoop went in for a big bite out of the gravel. I checked the hole to make sure I had the target, dropped my marker float and waded ashore to empty the scoop.

Dumping the gravel onto the beach, sitting quite brazenly on top of the pile of stones was the ring, and in only 12 minutes from switching the machine on (Largely thanks to an extremely accurate start point).

Handed her the lost ring with a smile and a “Happy Christmas!” accompanied by a small round of applause from onlookers.

One extremely grateful, and very relieved couple.

Early Christmas Present

In the space of 30 or so hours, it had already sunk 6-8 inches. I was quietly pleased to have snatched this one back from the beach!

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