Dave Boyer, Author at The Ring Finders

Late on Sunday night I received an e-mail from Renee B asking for help in finding her wedding ring.  She and her family were boating with her parents, and they pulled into the shallows to play in the water.   While wading in about 4 ft of water Renee felt her ring slide off.  Wanting to mark that spot as closely as possible, they looked toward the shore and saw a No Trespassing sign on a tree high on the cliff.  If you want to retrieve a ring lost in Lake Michigan, time is of the essence because of the wave action,  so my fellow Ringfinder, Gregg Larabel, and I met Renee’s husband, Paul, early Monday morning.   The spot where Renee lost the ring is in an isolated area where there are no houses and no close roads, so we had a walk of about a mile from where we were able to park to the spot below the No Trespassing sign.  Paul said Renee was about 40ft out into the water when she lost the ring.

The lake was not too friendly with about knee high whitecaps that kept pounding us as we were searching.  After a short time I received a good signal for a target which could have been a pull tab — or the ring.  I was having trouble retrieving the target with the waves pushing me around so I called Gregg over to help me out.  He confirmed it was a good signal and after several attempts the ring finally showed up in my scoop.  Paul was standing on the shore and I gave him the high sign with the ring on my pinky finger.  Paul made a phone call to Renee who was at work to give her the good news.   The timing was perfect because in a few days their anniversary date was coming up.

Brandon G. was getting ready to go kayaking and putting on some sunscreen when his ring went flying off his hand into about 3 ft of water.  Gregg Larabel, my fellow Ringfinder and I arrived at the spot before Brandon, and in about 15 minutes I had a ring in my scoop.  When Brandon got there I showed him what I had found so far: a full bottle of beer, 2 pull tabs and this round thing, his ring, making for one happy guy.  Got him out of the doghouse and saved another marriage.  You gotta love this job!

Drew and Kristin were out boating with friends yesterday and stopped in the sandy shallow area of Gun Lake to play in the water.  After horsing around for awhile, Drew noticed his ring was missing.  They had just been married in October of last year, and this ring was very special to both of them.  Thankfully, before they left the lake they had the great good sense to use plastic bags to mark the trees at either end of the area to search.  When Gregg Larabel, my fellow Ringfinder and I met them at the lake early this morning, those bags left no doubt about where to search.  In about 30 minutes this huge gold ring showed up in my scoop.  After a very sad and stressful evening Drew and Kristin had their smiles back again.                                                                                                                                                               

Chad and family were enjoying the beach at Warren Dunes when his gold wedding band disappeared in the sand.  Looking for the ring was not successful, and they had to go back home to the Chicago area.  They looked up the Ringfinders and sent me an e-mail late on Tuesday night asking if I could help him find the ring.  I had commitments for Wednesday morning and all day Thursday, but leaving the ring on the beach for two more days was risky, considering all the metal detectors that are out there every day.  My Ringfinder partner, Gregg Larabel, called Chad on Wednesday morning while I was tied up and had Chad send us a map of the beach pinpointing where he lost his ring.  Gregg and I agreed to go hunt for the ring late on Wednesday and luckily the beach was not too crowded at that time of day.  Because Chad’s map was so accurate, I found the ring in 15 minutes about 10 ft from the water line.  We called Chad with the good news and dropped his ring in the mail the next day.   Finding a ring always puts smiles on our faces!

On July 4th, 1997 Larry was playing volleyball in front of his aunt Laurie’s cottage on Hess Lake when he lost his huge gold wedding band in about 3 ft of water.  Laurie came up with picture to confirm that date.  Old picture shows Larry in the center of the picture with his hands on his hips.  He and his friends spent a good deal of time looking for the ring and finally gave up.  He purchased a new ring and went on with his life.

Last week Gregg and Doug Larabel and I decided to hunt a sandbar in that area of the lake.  After about three hours of hunting we headed for home dead tired and left the lake from a friend’s house right next door to Laurie’s house.  Laurie spied us and said that her nephew had lost his ring in front of her place many years ago and asked if we could find it.  We did a few swings around the area in front and told her we would be back to do a more thorough search at a later date.

This week, Gregg Larabel, my fellow Ringfinder and I came back to do that more thorough search for Laurie.  After about an hour we were having no success and were about to give up when I hit a good signal and there was this huge gold ring in my scoop.  The inscription inside the ring said “love forever LLB 7-22-78”.   After 20 years Laurie was not sure if this was Larry’s ring or not, but after a few phone calls we confirmed that this was indeed Larry’s ring.  The initials are his wife’s and the date is their wedding date.

Larry lives only a few miles from us and on the way home we delivered the ring to Larry.  It cannot get much better than this!!

 

 

Katherine is the first cousin of my son’s best friend from high school and I am friends with her grandfather.  They had heard about Ringfinders and knew I was involved, but with the number of years gone by from when the ring was lost they assumed it was futile to look for it.

O.D., the grandfather, finally mentioned the lost ring to me and I immediately said, “Let’s go and get it.”  Katherine had been playing in waist deep water at the campground beach four years ago when she noticed her white-gold ring with three stones was missing.  Gretchen, Katherine’s mother, and Katherine were working at the campground this week and we made arrangements to meet there for the hunt.

Gregg Larabel, my fellow Ringfinder, and I arrived at about noon and in about ten minutes I had the ring in my scoop.  Katherine knew exactly where she was when the ring was lost, and this made for a fast recovery.

Gretchen and Katherine were watching us from the beach and we called them over and presented the ring to Katherine by having her take it off my pinky finger.  They were delighted to have the ring back, and Mom even shed a tear or two.

It is always fun to return a ring, but especially rewarding when you are friends with the family.

 

Received a request from Jon K asking for help in finding a ring for his good friend Krissie from Chicago.  Krissie and her fiance were vacationing at Jon’s cottage over the holiday and keeping cool by playing catch with a tennis ball in about 4 ft of water.  On one throw she felt her ring fly off and did not see where it landed. Considering the 4 to 6 inches of silt on the bottom of the lake, their chances of finding that ring were near zero.

Jon and his friend met me at the cottage and gave me the story of how Krissie had lost the ring.  I started to grid the search area and each time I got a signal, Jon, wearing mask and snorkel, would dive down and retrieve the item for me – much easier with the thick silt on the bottom than using a water scoop.  With only some bottle caps and other junk found we decided to call Krissie to see if she could give us any more details on where the ring might have been lost.  She said her fiance was standing next to an underwater tie down for a boat, and she was about 30 feet away throwing the ball to him.  That information was key to giving us a more specific area to search. I soon got a high tone signal and I gave Jon the sign that this one had to be it.  I marked the spot with the wood handle end of my water scoop and Jon dove down with the pin-pointer to locate the target.  He came up with the ring in his hand and a big smile on his face.

With a few hoots and hollers for the neighbors watching us and a few pictures we ended the day on a high note for everyone.  When I got home I had already received a heart felt thank you voicemail from Krissie.  She said she bought that ring at Tiffany’s about 12 years ago, has worn it daily since then, and it means the world to her.

 

 

Gregg Larabel, my fellow ringfinder, got a call from Derek whose fiancee (Brooke) lost her engagement ring in the woods behind her apartment while looking for her cat.  She had put her ring in her jacket pocket before entering the woods, and after returning with the cat she found her pocket empty.  After Brooke gave us the story we marked off an area approximately 60ft x 60ft where she went in the woods.  The terrain dropped off sharply there, and the floor of the woods was covered with matted leaves and brush, making for tough searching.   After 2 hours we called in a friend, Dan B, to help us.  It was getting late and the three of us decided to give it one last shot before calling it a day and planning a return trip.  I walked down the hill into the woods and began searching about 20ft beyond the borders we had set up.  I got a good signal, took a closer look, and there was the ring lying in plain sight, right on top of the matted leaves.  To put it mildly, Derek and Brooke were ecstatic and can now concentrate on the upcoming wedding and reminisce in their later years of the day she lost her ring and the day it was found.

 

Jacob from Detroit lost his wedding ring while swimming off a sandbar in Pratt Lake in July of 2016.  Although he searched with a rented metal detector at the time, he did not find the ring.   When he contacted Chuck Raison, my fellow ringfinder from Baldwin, Chuck called me to help him on the hunt.

Jacob sent us a picture of the lake, marking the area where the ring was lost.  In July he had also marked the spot in the lake by placing a toy sand pail on the bottom of the lake where he lost the ring.  It was a beautiful day when we cruised out to that sandbar in Chuck’s fishing boat.  With no wind to speak of, the lake looked like a glass table top.  The water was crystal clear, and we could see the bottom of the lake and fish swimming around.  There are lots of houses on the lake shore but nobody was stirring, and the only sounds we heard were the singing of birds.

For this time of year we wore our 5mm wet suits, making for a comfortable hunt in the chilly water.  I was hunting in water about shoulder deep when I caught sight of that toy pail that Jacob had planted on the lake bottom.  Doing a careful search around that pail I found his ring not more than 10 feet from it.  Good thinking Jacob!  We called Jacob and we learned he was only about 20 miles away, attending a meeting.  We packed up our equipment and headed to his location to deliver the ring.  Pictures of his ring, Jacob and the equipment used in the recovery are attached

My hunting partner and fellow ringfinder, Gregg Larabel, received a call from Cindy S. saying she lost her ring in her bedroom and they could not find it.  Gregg and I showed up at her house after she got off work and met her husband, Paul, and Liz the family dog, then received the story of the lost ring.  Cindy and Paul were just waking up on Saturday morning and Cindy took off her three rings to apply hand lotion and handed them to Paul to put on his pinky finger for safe keeping.  He laid the rings on the bed for a moment before he decided that wasn’t a good idea, and handed them back to Cindy to put on the night stand.   Cindy took the rings without really looking at them and put them on the night stand.  She realized the wedding band was missing when she went to put them back on.   They searched the bedroom for hours without finding the lost wedding ring, and, deciding it was unlikely the cat ate it, Cindy got on the internet and found TheRingFinders.com.   Gregg and I decided to start the search in the bedroom, and with the help of Paul and Cindy we dismantled the bed and searched everywhere in, around, and under the bed.  No luck.  I then started to look next to the dresser at the foot of the bed and after moving a small pillow on the floor and with the help of a flashlight I saw the glint of the white gold ring hiding in the pile of the carpet.   How the ring got way over to that side of the room is the real mystery but we were all happy to see it back on Cindy’s finger.