Lost & Found Category | Page 422 of 491 | The Ring Finders

Got a call from Eleazar A. before 7am on Friday, August 12^th asking if I could help find his Platinum wedding band that he lost the day before in knee to waist deep water right around mid-tide. Unfortunately I and Jim Brouwer were on our way to NC to look for another lost ring from 6 days ago. I told Eleazar that I’d call him back when we finished that search and set up a time to meet. We finished up the first search with negative results so we headed back to North Myrtle Beach. I called Eleazar and told him we’d meet him on the beach in about an hour and a half.

Eleazar met Jim and I as we pulled into a parking spot and took us to the area him, his wife Natalie and 2 children had been sitting the day before and explained that he had been playing with the kids and boogie boarding about the mid-tide line and shortly after that he realized his ring had come off. He had made numerous observations on his location when he lost his ring which in the end was a great help. Jim took the water line and worked the incoming tide while I took the dry sand and worked my way down to the mid-tide line. Neither one of us were getting many targets which meant the beach was heavily sanded in. Jim and I made the decision to come back in the evening at low tide and left.

I showed back up about 8:30pm (an hour and twenty minutes before low tide) and started following the tide out in the area that Eleazar gave us with no luck at all. Twenty minutes or so before low tide I decided to expand my grid search south and went into the surf about knee deep. Within 20-30 steps I get a great signal on the Gold quest PI, dig a scoop and Bingo – I heard the heavy Platinum ring rattling around in the scoop and turned my head lamp on to confirm it. I walked back up to the hotel lights and took a picture of the ring and sent it with a text saying “Surprise!!”. I immediately got a text back from Eleazar saying “I’m on my way”. He shows up within seconds with his wife and 2 kids, that he just woke up, and his excitement was priceless. He was sure the ring was gone forever and I was starting to have my doubts as well. Trying to do a grid search in pitch black conditions with medium surf and an abundance of jellyfish is not an ideal way to search for anything let alone a small ring. But nonetheless his ring is back on his finger where it belongs.

Eleazar and Natalie, thank you so much for trusting me to find your precious ring and for the very generous reward. Have a very safe trip back home.

Jim