I received a phone call while nearing the end of my Summer Vacation week when I received a phone call from Himanshu. He was playing volleyball at the private compound of President’s Choice HQ in Brampton, Ontario. They had weekly volleyball matches. One of his team mates had said « you should take your ring off in case you lose it »…..
He was practicing prior to the match and sure enough…he lost it. I arrived a few hours prior to the start of the first match. Started a grid pattern from the serving line. One half of the court completed…no ring. Lots of clad coins and sharp thin copper wire pieces. Started on the other side of the court…3rd pass and BAAM…there was his 21k Platinum wedding band. Very special to him as it was India gold. We managed to capture the recovery on video!
One happy camper!!!
Himanshu was kind enough to make a donation to my charity « Kelly Shires Breast Cancer Foundation » in which I am sledding in my 9th consecutive year raising donations for men & woman fighting breast cancer!! « PAYING IT FORWARD »…awesome, everyone WINS!!
I was contacted via email by a frantic Trish P of Toronto. Trish was totally overwhelmed and heartbroken because her boyfriend of 16 years finally proposed to her and where married last October!! This definitely pulled at my heart strings and I knew in my heart I could help her and those rings were just waiting for me to find them.
Trish was with her Family and Friends at Wasaga Beach #3. They were playing volleyball in 4 1/2′ to 5′ depth water 175′ from the shoreline when both her wedding ring and engagement ring flew off her finger. They spent the rest of the day searching for hours but could not find them. The next day a friend of her’s guided her to my ‘Metal Detecting for Charity » Facebook page for finding lost rings. I was actually detecting at Wasaga Beach #1 and asked her to head up form Toronto as the sooner I start detecting the area they were lost the better chances I had in finding them. Trish had said she said « I felt it was a needle in a haystack and she didn’t know metal detectors could go in water ». I told her to BREATHE and head on up when she could.
3 hours later I met up will her and her husband Gary (alias Spongebob…little inside joke as I couldn’t remember his name). We walked all the way down to Beach #3 not realize how long it would take. I spent approximately 1 1/2 hours in the water with Trish with no luck. Walking back to shore I got a hit. Unfortunately, it was a men’s wedding ring. My heart sank but I was happy that I had recovered another ring. I told her I was coming back up all weekend dog/house sitting and would not stop searching for it till I found it. Well attempt #2 was in 5′ to 6’ foot waves….CRAZY. I was tossed around and learn just how stubborn I was. Onto the 3rd attempt the following day and again NO LUCK!
The end of July and I headed back up to Wasaga for my 4th attempt. Trish and Gary where also coming up to Beach #1 with Friends. I started that morning with a Prayer to the water Gods, Detecting Gods, Guardian Angels for some Faith, Hope and Luck finding Trish’s stunning rings….I had been in the water at 9:30am and around 2:00pm and thought a couple more grid passes and I’m heading back to get some food and water. An incredible low strong tone…I haven’t heard before had my heart pumping. First scoop out…there was Trish’s WEDDING BAND full of beautiful little diamonds!! I freaked…and then decided a circular grid around this location. 3 minutes later BAM!! The same low strong tone. My heart was racing. First scoop….nothing. 2nd scoop …YIPPPEEEE….there was her ENGAGEMENT RING!! I started to cry and gave thanks to the Gods. I was shaking like a leaf.
I raced backed to shore line beaming from ear to ear and the ladies beside me asked « Did you find anything »…I was overjoyed to show them that I found Trish’s ring set. They were amazed. I quickly called…and texted Trish..leaving messages to see where she was at. I had just been notified on the Friday by Chris Turner the I was Officially accepted to « The Ring Finders » and was super stoked. Chris had suggested when recovering a ring…try to surprise the client.
Sure enough I caught up to Trish and 2 girlfriends as I made up that I was taking a break, stretching my legs and getting food and a hot Tim Horton’s coffee. I had already eaten my TimBits and decided to put the rings in the little bag…..my plotting was starting. I asked to walk over to say hi to Gary to stretch my legs….and then proceeded to ask to do a short little live interview. THEY HAD NO IDEA I FOUND BOTH RINGS!! So slowly getting into the interview and then I couldn’t wait any longer to say… »Oh by the way, I have something for you »…Trish’s JAW DROP with the words « OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD…ARE YOU KIDDING ME » there in the TimBit bag were both her incredible 1.7 carat matching wedding/engagement ring set. P-R-I-C-E-L-E-S-S!!! I will never ever forget that moment!! EVER!! not to mention her girlfriends were crying in happiness.
Video of live FB beach interview and the EXCELLENT surprise:
I still watch the video as it has become my most favourite ring recovery & return!! Trish and Gary made an extremely generous donation to the Charity I snowmobile for… « The Kelly Shires Breast Cancer Foundation » helping men & woman with the financial burden fighting breast cancer!! I am very grateful and proud for this opportunity and also meeting such nice people!! ZOOWEEMAMA~~~
I received a call a few days ago from a guy who had lost his wedding band in Lions Head ON. Myself and my father both avid users of metal detectors decided to take about an hour drive up to see if we could locate this item. We soon came to realize that the beach we were metal detecting had some large rocks making for a difficult search. The water depth in this location also dropped off very fast making it challenging to check further into the water. After about a steady two hours of searching as well as using goggles to go under and see if we could locate it by eye we decided to call the search off for the day as we covered pretty much all the area that we believed the ring was lost in. I had my suit about half off when he told us there was one more spot he would like us to search. The family created a rock statue and threw the rocks back in after they were done. I quickly suited back up and went over to the location the rocks had been thrown into. Within roughly a couple minutes I had a very strong beep ringing up at around a 63 on my Garrett AT Pro. I spend a small amount of time locating what rock this beep was coming from. I bent into the water and lifted a rock about the size of a football. Sure enough if his platinum ring and diamonds was not under that rock sparkling in the sun!!
We are very pleased to have helped this gentleman and look forward to many more searches to come!
Just wanted to say hi to everyone from Sarnia, Ontario, Canada. I have been a member of the ring finders for close to a year now and just love what is represents. Chris Turner has done an excellent job building this great service. I love metal detecting as a hobby and nothing is better than helping someone find lost jewelry or keys that they think are gone forever. This year I was only able to do 2 searches for people, one was for an earring that I was unsuccessful with and the other was for 2 lost rings that had a great ending. The rings were tossed out a door in a moment of grief but then promptly searched for without success. The next day I was called. When the rings were tossed they were said to have hit a parked car and ricocheted off the car. I was able to locate the first ring on the other side of the car in the neighbours yard and the second ring was about the same distance in the total opposite direction. luckily both rings were found within about 20 minutes and needless to say the teary eyed owner was very happy. I am still working on getting some pictures which I will post soon after.
