Gold signet ring lost at Cable Bay - Found in the Sea

Shortly after Christmas, Caitie was enjoying her holiday at Cable Bay wearing a special gold signet ring gifted to her for her 21st with the family crest that dates back a few hundred years engraved into it.

Tragically, she lost the ring in the waves, and gave it up as lost.

Almost a week later, she contacted me.

She had been buying a couple of “make myself feel better” rings at a local jeweller in Mangonui, who suggested Caitie get in touch to see if I could reunite her with the treasured ring.

The beach at Cable Bay is a steep gradient ocean beach. It’s very dynamic being composed predominantly of small broken shell fragments and anything dropped has potential to sink through the layers quickly with the wave action. After a week, having Caitie be able to meet me on site would be critical to push the odds into our favour.

Unfortunately she was slightly  delayed getting to the beach, so I got started with the information I had to hand.

I cleared the area as described by Caitie, then started expanding out – focussing on the low tide mark and wash as the tide was due to turn and start coming in.

Some 20 metres further along the beach, knee deep in the water, I got a faint tone. Could be one of the thousands of flecks of aluminium foil that inhabit that beach… or a deep ring.

With ring finding, you have to confirm every single target. It’s not uncommon to finish a search for a ring in the sea with 50+ can pull tabs, bottle caps and old copper coins in the pouch. (any detected rubbish is bagged to help clean up the environment – and avoid digging it next time)

It took several scoops to catch up with the ring in the fluid sand at a depth of nearly 40cm.

I secured her wayward lost gold ring and continued hunting casually for the next few minutes while I waited for Caitie to arrive.

The reaction when you return a presumed lost for ever ring is always worth far more than the melt value to me.

There were screams, clapping hands and jumping with joy from Caitie.

Priceless.