Lost Platinum Wedding Ring Found on Capitola Beach

  • from Santa Cruz (California, United States)
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Noo !

Noo !

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I received the call while I was at work. The owner had just lost her wedding ring on the beach and was understandably very anxious to get it back. I tried to calm her nerves and explain what would take place before and during a search. We realized the search would have to wait until the following morning. The next day also happened to be her 10th wedding anniversary and I wanted very badly to make it one they would always remember. Since she would be unable to meet me at the site I instructed her to dig a large hole near the location (but not too close!) and to text me some reference photos of the spot to give me some background landmarks to help me discern the likely area of the ring for the search the next day. The owner did this to perfection (she had a crew of eager kids helping and they did a great job!) and provided me with some invaluable information to help make a successful recovery. After doing quite a few of these searches I was feeling pretty good about the odds of a recovery. The information I had received was very good quality and I had every reason to believe the ring was laying hidden near where the owner thought it was. With all of this I told the owner that, in my opinion, we had a very good chance of success but I couldn’t make any guarantees because the unforeseen “wild card” could always come into play and change everything.

I arrived at the beach at first light eager and confident but when I pulled up my worst fears were realized when I saw the infamous “wild card” directly in front of me. There, very near to the spot was a large tractor scooping and pushing sand across the beach! I ran out and flagged the operator down. After explaining the situation he obliged and headed towards the ocean and away from the search area. I shudder to think of what the outcome would have been had I arrived even a little later. Once the adrenaline had subsided I got out my phone and zeroed in on the likely spot using the photos I had to triangulate the ring’s hiding spot as best I could. The ring was platinum with diamonds encircling it which would mean it would probably be a very low and broken signal, I was going to have to check every single signal I got, no matter how small. With my discrimination setting at zero I proceeded to hunt very slowly and meticulously. Bits of foil and random pieces of metal garbage were everywhere but I had to check and retrieve them all. The ring, with it’s material and construction could “look” like any of these to my machine. 30-40 minutes in I was beginning to wonder if the ring, with it’s faint signal, may have been pushed too deep for the the coil I was using to “see”. I decided to search for awhile longer before putting on a deeper-searching coil which I had brought along for just this possibility. A couple minutes later I received a decent signal but not exactly what I was expecting from the ring. I wanted so badly to be able to give the owner good news that I asked the detecting gods to smile upon me as I brushed at the sand. There, down about 3″ was the beautiful ring sitting edge up ! The detecting gods were indeed smiling brightly upon all of us today. A happy anniversary for the couple and an awesome day for me 🙂

Yes !

Yes !

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4 Comments »

4 Replies to “Lost Platinum Wedding Ring Found on Capitola Beach”

  1. Bob says:

    Awesome job Scott!

    1. Scott Foss says:

      Thanks Bob ! The owner just picked up her ring and she was so happy it completely made my day. I love doing this !

  2. Mark Rubey says:

    Great timing and recovery! The sooner you jump on a search at a public beach, the better. What machine are you using and what did the ring read?

  3. Chris Turner says:

    Way to go Scott!!!

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