Hey folks, I began offering a service for recovering lost rings and jewelery on our South Jersey beaches last summer. I have had many successful recoveries. I do not charge for my efforts or service, I am just happy to reunite an owner with a treasured lost item especially if it has significant sentimental value to the owners.
So I had received a call on my day off for a lost Platinum men’s wedding band on one of our local beaches. The tide was already coming back in for the day and the next low tide for that beach wasn’t until 4am the next morning. The owner was fairly distraught over loosing this ring so I made a commitment to give it a shot first thing in the morning. I set my alarm for 3:30 am and headed out. I arrived onto the pitch black beach around 3:45am armed with my Minelab Excalibur II, Trex scoop, and head lamp. The surf was fairly calm and low with a slight breeze coming off of the water. Knowing that time is of the essence on water recoveries I started ut into chest deep water working a fairly tight pattern parallel to the shore. I was getting hammered a bit as I came closer to shore. It is always creepy and not the safest venture to be in the ocean in the pitch black but I know the beaches fairly well and am familiar with the ocean floor topography. I continued working up into the wet sand tide line with a few targets including a 50 cal round and shell casing.
I began retracing my pattern back towards the water and bam got a nice strong repeatable signal and out pops an interesting looking silver ring. This little ring was amongst a few "greenies". So I kept working into the small breakers which is the most difficult area to hunt due to the under current and constant crashing waves when I got another nice strong signal. Out pops the men’s platinum wedding band. It was now around 4:45am and I decided to pack it in a salvage some sleeping time... I was able to contact the owner and she picked up the band by 10am the same morning, overjoyed and in disbelief that it was found.
Continued about my day and received a call from another bride claiming that her husband lost his white gold band while playing in the surf with the kids. This tide was low at 4:15pm the same day. I arranged childcare for my kids and headed back down to a beach on the other end of our island. Met with Suzy and her husband and they were able to show me a general area of where the ring could possibly be, which again was in the water. This beach was heavily populated with a bunch of kids in the surf playing so I attempted to work a pattern dodging waves and kids left and right. After speaking with the couple further I determined the area they were at when they lost the ring was under about 6ft or so of high tide water. I moved into shallower breakers again with no luck at all. I told the couple that I would keep at it for a few hours and I would call them in case they got bored or wanted to leave.
The couple left about 45min later and I kept plugging away with quite a large audience of beach patrons. The word of what I was looking for had spread thru out the crown and they were growing more eager than I. It got to the point that if I dug a single target about 10 or 11 people would come down to see what I had. Anyway I kept at it for about another 20 min and I got yet another solid repeatable signal in the water’s edge of the small waves. Out pops a 14k men’s wedding band. The applause and cheers from the beach patrons was humbling to say the least. I made my way back up to my truck and phoned the couple whom was staying two blocks away from the beach where the ring was recovered. That ring was also returned to the grateful couple whom also couldn’t believe that I was able to locate the band. Both couples insisted on a tip for my time and efforts, which was nice. But to be honest, like I said earlier, the reaction you get when you reunite the owners of these items with their item is priceless and that would be reward or (tip) enough for me!
Jeff – New Jersey, USA
