Lost Ring Recovered at Popular Snorkeling Reef on Hawaii's Big Island

“One Step, Two Step…Gone…”

Scott and Sue are visiting from the mainland and called to say Scott had lost his ring at Two Step, the popular snorkelling and diving spot in Captain Cook. It gets its name from literally two steps going off the lava flow into a bay with a beautiful reef and almost daily, dolphins swimming as they rest from the night’s hunt.
Two-Step is also full of coral and large rocks – and is actually quite a large place – so a lost ring could have fallen in one of a million holes never to be seen again.

Detectors aren’t great at finding rings over coral – first of all, the coil can bang into and damage corals so one has to be very careful when detecting around them, greatly slowing a search. Secondly, it’s hard for a metal detector to find objects over about 16 inches deep and most of the natural holes and spaces in coral goes deeper than that.
Scott and Sue arrived early in the morning and told me that the ring was lost two days earlier. Thankfully, he’d gone down the first step, down the second step and then dove in the water. As he turned to swim back to help his wife, the ring went flying. He and his friends had then spent the next three hours looking for it to no avail.
I geared up with a scuba tank and slipped into the water. The fresh water seeping out of the rocks made it hard to actually see – almost like looking through a clear kaleidoscope at times. Big rocks and piles of broken shell are immediately around the entrance area and I looked in about 8 feet of water – peering into crevasses and crannies, detecting the tiny pukas (holes) made by sea urchins, and the big rocks that had piled up from the recent, large surf. Glimmering from under one rock pile was a large, gold men’s ring hiding among the stones.

Scott helped me out and they couldn’t believe I’d found it having had searched so long in the same place. Scott had the ring for 38 years and said he was going to buy a silicone ring and put this one in a safety deposit box!
Glad to have helped out!

If you’re on the Big Island of Hawaii and have lost something valuable – call us immediatelyat (808) 430 5660!