16 September 2024
When George lost the gold wedding band that had encircled his ring finger for 47 years he had little hope that he’d ever see it again. He’d been enjoying a swim in chest deep water when he felt the ring slip off, and an attempted search in the mobile sand proved fruitless. Later in the evening his daughter learned of the RingFinders through the Fabulous Falmouth Facebook page and early the next morning she called me to see if I might be able to help. I of course said yes, I’d be happy to do a search. She said she’d get in touch with her father, who lives off-Cape, so that we could arrange to meet and he could direct me to the area to search. When I received his call and got some information about where he lost the ring I headed to the beach to start the search while he was on his way to meet me. The timing was good, tide-wise, as water in the search area was now only shin- to knee-deep. It was also good that I had received the call early, as there were already two other detectorists in the area when I arrived. Fortunately, there was no conflict over the places that we were searching.
I set up a search pattern and within about 45 minutes had that magical signal that says ‘gold’. One scoop and I pulled up George’s ring. It had taken only one and a half tidal cycles for the ring to be buried 6-8″ deep as the waves shifted sand across the seabed.
I pocketed the ring and continued on searching the area while I waited for George to arrive. He appeared about a half hour later and we stood on the beach and chatted for a few minutes. He pointed out the area where he thought the ring was lost (spot- on for the area I’d searched!) and expressed his disappointment about losing the ring and his feeling that it was lost cause that it could ever be found. We finally got to talking about the ring itself and I asked him to describe it to me. As he finished his description I palmed the ring from my pocket, opened my hand, and asked, “does it look something like this?” Needless to say, that next moment is always one of the BEST that one can possibly experience in life – the surprise, disbelief and joy of the recipient, together with the surge of happiness I feel, knowing that I’ve been able to make that happen.
Well, to make a long story short, I took a few pictures to go with this little story and we continued some conversation about life in general, and grandchildren in particular. It was a beautiful day.
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