Double Ring Recovery Day on Hawaii’s Big Island.
MY EARS ARE STILL RINGING!
I got a call about a lost class ring from a visiting teacher to Kona.
James – from Texas – had wanted to rent a detector from us, a service which we do provide.
As an instructor, his biggest challenge was that his classroom was a floating one – teaching on the big ship currently out in Kailua Bay – and he was stuck on the boat giving lectures then watch-shift. He could see the beach but not physically get to it!
Could we look for it on his behalf? Of course! That’s what we’re good at!
James described how he’d lost his ring – he been rough-housing with some of the students and was tackled in the water while at King Kamehameha Beach – he’d seen the ring fly off and sink to the bottom. Stamping his foot on it to mark the spot, he was confident that he’d could reach down through the water to pick it out of the sand, but then he was instantly tackled again – all hope of finding it was gone.
I went out with my detector and got in the water after a large number of paddlers finished beaching their large canoes. I watched as the sand churned under their feet and hoped the ring wasn’t getting deeper and deeper in the sand…!
I hadn’t gotten a good description of James’ ring, so wasn’t sure what type of tone I’d get as my Minelab Excalibur detector gives a variety of sounds based on the metal content (i.e. gold, platinum, tungsten, etc…) of a ring.
I picked up a few coins, some trash and then – bang! – my headphones gave off the sound of a massive gold object! I almost jumped as the sound was so loud it scared me!
I scooped up the sand with my long-handled scoop – nothing – but there was definitely something down there! Another scoop and a bright yellow golden object flashed in the basket as the sand drained away!
There it was in all its glory – a beautiful and massive golden class ring that was no longer lost! With the Texas A&M coat of arms on top, it must have weighed a quarter of an ounce!
We had to wait a day for James to come to shore – but he was thrilled to have his class ring returned. We laughed together about sheer size of this ring – and the fact that my ears were still ringing from when I found it!
I’ll be sure to turn down the volume next time I look for another ring from Texas!
THE LITTLE THINGS CAN BE VERY IMPORTANT TOO
We got a desperate call from a woman whose church group had helped organize a concert here on the Big Island – and one of the church’s parishioners had lent his car to the concert’s head performer.
The performer had a few hours to kill before his first concert so went to one of our local beaches. As he went back to get ready for his first performance, he suddenly realized his key – and the only key to the car – had been lost in the sand.
He looked for the lost key and finally had to ask to be picked up or miss the concert!
Some of the church members went to the beach the next morning to search for the key with rakes, carefully combing the sand in the area the musician had been.
After three hours they looked online and we got the call – and went immediately to the beach to join them in the hunt.
The site where the key was lost was quite small and had been scoured with rake marks. I searched the area for about 15 minutes with my Excalibur II metal detector, finding wire, fishing weights – and then hit a big target in the sand.
The car key materialized in my scoop as the sand strained out of it.
A key is such a small thing, but finding it saved the congregation from having to hire a tow truck to come to this remote spot and re-key the ignition.
We were happy to help – and remembered that sometimes the most valuable things are often what seem of least value – until they’re not!
“Memories are Not Always Deep”
BIMD was so happy to have helped Kyle and Nicole find Kyle’s lost wedding ring.
I went out to the Mauna Kea Hotel look for Kyle’s lost titanium wedding ring in the shallow, small bay in front of the hotel.
Kyle had taken off his ring and applied sunscreen, then instead of putting back on his finger, tied the ring onto a piece of cord in his swimming trunk’s cargo pocket.
As he waded into waist-deep water, he suddenly realized he’d left his iPhone in his pocket and rushed back towards the shore pulling his phone out to get it out of the saltwater.
It must have been around there that the ring was also lost having come undone from the string, he surmised.
When I arrived Kyle, Nicole and their friends were entrenched on a group of beach chairs near the water. Kyle went into the water to show me the general area in the bay where he’d pulled out his iPhone.
I searched the waist deep water for about an hour or more. Dusk was approaching and the winds had picked up. One of Kyle’s friends came out and pointed to a different area, still waist deep, where he thought Kyle had been.
Kyle had been searching the bay with his mask and snorkel as I’d hunted with the detector. As he left to dry off, I followed him out of the water and again asked about the direction he’d taken as he’d exited the water with his wet iPhone in hand.
Standing in about 2 inches of water, he pointed from where I’d been up to the chairs where his friends and Nicole were. As he headed up the beach I turned back towards the water and – bang – there was a signal blasting through the headphones that had hardly sounded a blip in the past hour-and-a-half. “Wait!” I called after him – and dug, dug and dug until I had the target in my scoop.
Eight inches down thru the sand, just in two inches of water, came out Kyle’s ring!
The ring must have come loose – as thought – when he’d reached in his pocket to save his mobile phone – and hadn’t gone spilling out in the water after all – but had come out as he’d run up and out of the water.
Happy to have recovered Kyle and Nicole’s lost treasure in ankle deep water – even though their memories were ‘deeper’.
My wife and I were on our honeymoon on the Big Island in early 2017. We were having an amazing time until we stopped at a beach in Hilo. After a few minutes of swimming near turtles I realized I had lost my wedding ring. I was in a state of shock. The gold ring was a family heirloom. My mother had given my father the ring when they married over 40 years ago. I couldn’t believe it was now lost in the ocean just three months after my wedding. For over an hour I attempted to find it but I eventually gave up. I had lost hope. But that’s when I found out my wife had a plan. When I got out of the water she was already on the phone with Brent at Big Island Metal Detecting. I was sure the ring was lost for good, but Brent convinced us he could help find it. Since it was so late in the day we agreed to meet at the beach early the next morning. Brent drove across the island from Kona to meet us at 6:30 a.m. By 7 a.m. the ring was back on my finger! Brent was able to locate the ring even though it was buried in sand in water over six feet deep. Brent turned the lowest moment of our honeymoon into a story we will never forget. We then all celebrated with an early breakfast in town. We had found the ring and made a new friend. Thank you so much Brent. – Mike from Brooklyn
I was so happy to have helped Mike and Michelle from New York to find their special – but recently lost – wedding ring!
The ring had been Mike’s father’s, given to him from his late mother, and its importance to them as irreplaceable was understood.
I left Kona at 4:50am to race over to Hilo for sunrise, the only time they could meet.
Mike had lost his gold wedding band in chest deep water near Hilo at Carlsmith Beach Park, a protected, tiny bay with a thin line of rocks protecting it from the open ocean.
Cold, clear water pours from the mountains and out of the rocks into many of the Big Island beaches – and today the fresh water was especially strong due to recent, heavy rains near Hilo.
I descended a set of metal stairs into the water and almost immediately started shivering – the fresh water was super cold – and the difference between salinity and temperature killed all visibility under water.
I started hunting back and forth using the Minelab Excalibur metal detector in the fresh-salt water along the route Mike had been swimming before noticing the ring was missing. After 20 minutes, no luck…
Where exactly had he been when he notice his ring was gone? I asked.
Right about here – he’d replied – signaling near where I had just searched.
I looked around the rocks and sand where he’d indicated for about 30 seconds and BANG! I scooped the sand and we both dove down to try and see if it were in the scoop.
Too blurry…! But I could hear metal jingling in the metal basket. I pulled the scoop out of the water and saw a flash of gold.
Mike reached in and held it up his found wedding ring for his wife to see.
As we got out of the water shivering, dawn broke and the sun shone down on us through the clouds.
It was a little beam of light for us all.
It was a busy day for Big Island Metal Detecting!
Two desperate callers rang within 10 minutes of each other requesting searches for their lost jewelry.
What started out as two recoveries ended with the discovery of a third ring!
Since all searches are time-sensitive, Sylvie searched one beach looking for the lost wedding ring – while Brent searched another beach with his friend for a lost earing.
During his search, Brent found a very large ring under the water with the inscription “Dario Loves Fallon” written on the outside.
As the ring did not belong to either client, we went to work to track down the owner, a feat we thought would be nearly impossible, especially without a last name to search the World Wide Web!
A Google search turned up only one page that promised a little hope of identifying the owner. A Go Fund Me webpage had the matching names, “…Dario, Fallon’s husband..” The Go Fund Me page was set up to request contributions because Fallon had a life-threatening medical emergency and required immediate surgery. Following the page links and using the new details, it was then possible to then find their Facebook pages – which indeed had photos of them on the Big Island of Hawaii a month earlier!
We were excited and emotional at the prospect of having found the owner – and if this was indeed them, then we knew that such fantastic news would be welcome news due to their current, grave situation. Rings can be so incredibly sentimental and in our experience, it can make such a huge difference to have a ring returned that was thought to be gone forever. We sent a message to them on Facebook and excitedly checked the next morning for a response.
Dario Palavra replied, “I’m so shocked that you guys found my ring. We were just in Hawaii in August!.It is my wedding ring – my wife has a matching ring. I figured it was long gone. I thought I lost it in the deep water since I love to swim. I’m so happy that you guys found it – since we got back from Hawaii we been dealing with a lot of health problems with my wife – I almost lost her – she had less than 10% chance of living and now when you tell me you found our wedding ring, that is amazing. Once I get it back it is going to be glued to my finger!!!”
We express mailed the ring to Dario, and soon afterwards got a photo of him wearing the ring he thought he would never see again!
If you’re interested further in this story – or would like to read about Fallon’s Go-Fund-Me page, go to :
https://www.gofundme.com/GoTeamFallon
Big Island Metal Detecting
“Racing for Rings!”
Sylvie and I are just thru all the “fun” of moving houses to a new home down the street – but on moving-day – we got a call from Jared visiting with his family from Seattle.
Sylvie kept packing and since I’d already moved all but our giant mattress I raced to the beach, counting every second before I was supposed to be back, and out of our old house.
Jared had actually seen his platinum ring come off his finger in the chest-deep water and panic-dived to try and grab it. It was instantly covered and lost by the sand.
We looked at the area Jared thought he’d been in. The details of exactly where became hazy as he’d swam desperately to find it.
I checked the location for 45 minutes in the water, then decided to expand my search. Sure enough, about 10 minutes into my new search pattern I heard a familiar sound in my Minelab Excalibur headphones.
I scooped in the sand with my long-handled basket and then dove down to see the contents as the sand strained away.
Inside, Jared’s big platinum wedding band looked back at me – gotcha!
Jared was overjoyed and I had to say a hasty thank you for his trust and gracious reward.
Racing back to Kona, I got back in time just to move the last big piece of furniture and checked out with minutes to spare!
Mahalo Jared for trusting us to find your treasure! Mahalo Sylvie for packing and making it possible for me to go!