Lost Gold Wedding Band at Kaneohe Sandbar...FOUND!!!

  • from O‘ahu (Hawaii, United States)


This ring find began on 31 January 2017 when I received a ring finders email from Irena who resides in Sherman Oaks California that while enjoying a day on the Kaneohe Sand Bar her husband Arun’s wedding band fell off into 1-2 feet of water. They looked for a period of time but couldn’t find the ring. You need a boat to get to the Sand Bar however mine was getting serviced and it was going to take awhile as we waited for parts. Something you get used to here…waiting for everything. Irena asked a few contacts she had but nothing panned out. Then we were in for a spell of bad weather and high surf. The days and weeks went by then I finally got my boat back. Also luckily for me since I’d never been to the Sand Bar a gentleman named Marshall that purchased a sand scoop from us “All Island Treasure Detectors” while talking story told me he had been to the Sand Bar many times over the years and knew the navigation very well. Perfect timing just the man I need! We waited for good weather and an ideal tide to spend the most amount of time on the Sand Bar as possible. Finally on 14 April Marshall and I headed out. We used Irena’s Google Maps Pin Drop to anchor the boat and start our search area. The Sand Bar is a party location and is littered with pull tabs, bottle caps and other metallic party remnants. In addition to all that I found a Silver ring and assorted coins. It came time to depart and we started the boat for departure when I noticed the “no wake” buoy just off the Sand Bar. I remembered seeing that in some of Irena’s photos so when I got back home I asked Irena to send me as many photos she could with that buoy and other landmarks in the background. On 11 May Marshall & I got another opportunity weather and tide wise to return to the Sand Bar. This time we brought Irena’s pictures and did some cross fixes to the landmarks. As you can see in the blog pics Marshall duplicated the exact view Irena provided.

I laid my red nylon cord grid line down perpendicular to the shoreline at the point Irena would have exited their boat back in January. I proceeded to detect towards the area the three beach beauties appeared to be frolicking in. Marshall went the other direction and called over that he found a White Gold Band. It only said 14K on the inside so that wasn’t it. I found a few coins, pull tabs, a Gold Sunrise Shell Earring and a tiny Gold Ring with two Diamonds. Then the Excal screamed and I knew I was about to find something really nice. That tone I will never forget. One scoop down and there in my scoop was a beautiful White Gold Wedding Band. I looked skyward and said please God let this be it. The inscription initials and date were a perfect match. I put my scoop in the sand where I found the ring and went back to my boat to get my camera to take a few pics and to send one to Irena for verification.


She texted back, Yep!!! That’s it! The next day I confirmed mailing the ring back to California and Irena texted, ” Amazing, this whole thing is so surreal. I still can’t believe it’s found. Thank you!!” As you can see the ring is back on Arun’s finger. Aloha to Arun & Irena. A big Mahalo to Marshall for helping with the navigation and encouragement!

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