I received a message from Pat Friday evening, telling me his family had lost a white gold wedding ring in Crescent Lake, Oregon. He believed it was in the shallow waters near where they had spent the day enjoying the beach. I told him I was about 3.5 hours away from the location, and referred him to a detectorist who was a little closer.
He followed up with messages regarding some metal detectors he had found for sale in the area, inquiring if they would do the job finding the ring. The detectors were 1970s to early 1980 vintage, and while quite capable would be difficult for a novice user to be successful. He thanked me for taking the time to advise him and told me they were going to spend the next day back at the lake looking for the ring, and might buy one of the detectors to try.
It was obviously very important to them to find that ring. I had a phone conversation with Pat to get some more details, and discuss metal detectors. He told me his sister in law, Betsy, had been in and out of the water during the day. When they got back to their vacation rental, she noticed the ring was gone. They had rushed back to the lake hoping to find it, but didn’t. I let him know I’d be happy to come down and help out, and would get an early start, hopefully arriving before the area became too crowded.
I arrived at 0830, meeting Pat, his wife, Betsy and her husband Mike. They had already set up the beach exactly as it was the day before; vehicles parked in the same place, two pop-up awnings, cooler and chairs. We talked about the area of the lake Betsy had been in, which was about 25 yards wide, and 5 or 6 feet out into the water. I geared up and started into the water. I began a little outside of the suspected area, waded in several about 15 feet, took a half step right, then went back. Not surprisingly, there were many aluminum pull-tabs, fishing weights, and an odd number of shell casings. Each time I went in with the scoop, Betsy would watch hopefully, only to be disappointed when I held up some aluminum or the odd coin.
I spent about two hours, slowly covering an area larger than originally pointed out. I went back to Betsy for more information. I asked her if she had been doing anything that would have caused the ring to fall off and that’s when I learned she had taken the ring off and placed it in the top of her swimsuit for safekeeping and found it was no longer there when they got back to the house. During the day she had been in and around the parked vehicles, under the awnings wrangling toddlers, and only out in the water no deeper than to around her knees. With these details, I decided to switch up my gear and focus on the shallow shoreline. I also pulled out my spare detector, gave Mike a quick tutorial and set him loose on the beach.
Still coming up empty, we took everything out from under the awnings to search. Still no ring. We were at around hour four, when Pat suggested the ladies pack up the kids and go back to the house. Later he told me he thought it was better for Betsy to go because it was looking less likely we were going to find it.
With one vehicle gone, I searched the area it was parked and only found a dime. I suggested Mike move his truck so we could cover that area, then we could load all the stuff from their beach set-up and search there without the interference from the stakes and metal legs of the awnings.
Once he moved the truck, Mike started swinging his detector, moving down toward the water, Pat began packing up, and I focused on where the truck had been. I soon hit a scratchy sound, but perfect numbers on the display and shallow. I kicked back some sand and saw nothing. I kicked back a little more and saw the back edge of a ring poking out of the sand. I picked it up and to my great relief I had it in my hand! It had either been under the truck, or so close that its signal had been hidden.
I walked down to Mike and told him it was pointless to keep searching. He nodded in agreement, and I said “It’s pointless because here it is” and held up the ring. It took a second, but his face lit up when he realized we had found it. Pat rushed over and we had an awkward 3 man ‘Bro-hug’ moment on the beach. Many of the people on the beach who had been watching came over to see the ring and congratulated us.
Mike was trying to decide how to tell Betsy the ring was safe and give it back to her. I asked if it would be alright if I went along to see her get it. They thought that was a great idea and I should be the one to give it to her. I followed them back, and Pat’s wife was going through the back of the SUV. Betsy came out and there was a discussion about searching the driveway for the ring. I told her she could look in the driveway, or she could just look here, and showed her the ring. Tears of joy and several hugs followed. I passed on a generous dinner offer, needing to get on the road.
Long drive, a long search, and a long story, but got to make some new friends and help return an irreplaceable ring.
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