Man’s Gold Wedding Band Lost in the Ocean at North Myrtle Beach SC, Found and Returned

On May 13th, I received an email from Cliff stating he had lost his wedding band the week before, on May 7th, while swimming in the ocean in North Myrtle Beach. I thought the resort he said he had stayed at was in Myrtle Beach, so I passed the email on to Matt Fry, the ring finder for Myrtle Beach. After a few more emails with Cliff, I realized the ring was actually lost in North Myrtle Beach so I took the search and called Matt to let him know.

I got all the details from Cliff, including the fact that he lost his ring just a little over an hour after high tide, which was good, but he also said he was roughly waist deep when he lost it, which puts it out in the ocean a little further. Cliff was back home, in Ohio, so I sent him a google map of the area with my anticipated search area outlined, he replied that he thought the area should shift a little to the north. Looking at the tide table, low tide was at 9:55 pm, so I hit the beach close to 8 pm expecting to work the outgoing tide. Once I got to the beach, I expanded my search area out, probably 15 yards on both ends. Working parallel to the surf, I started my grid search at about the mid tide line. After almost an hour, and maybe 15 grid lines of 60-70 yards each, I got a strong 15/16 on my Equinox 800. I dug a shallow scoop of sand and saw the gold wedding band staring up at me from the bottom of the scoop. After almost a week, I was surprised the ring wasn’t deeper than where I found it, but so happy to have it in my hand. I took a couple of pictures and sent them to Cliff with a text of “BA-BOOM!!! Look familiar? Call me!” I got his address and got his ring in the mail the next morning.

I received an email on Thursday, May 16th that he had just received his ring. In his email he told me that he hadn’t told his wife yet that he lost it. He said that they were enjoying their vacation so much that he didn’t want to ruin her time, although, both his sisters and daughter knew it was lost. Shortly after they got home, she left town on a work trip, and that’s when he searched the web and found one of my posts about finding another couple’s ring and contacted me. So Cliff was extremely happy that his ring was found and returned before he had to break the bad news to his wife. Another very happy ending!

Cliff, thank you for trusting me to help find your lost treasure.

Jim