Ring lost in San Diego Bay found
Scott was kayaking back in August, and while paddling close to shore, his dog decided to jump out of his kayak and into the water. In the process of getting his dog back inside, Scott’s wedding ring came off and into the drink. He tried to find it, but, with a mucky bottom and poor visibility, we know how that ended. He and his wife Caitlin found me online and asked for help. We met at the site during a minus low tide at 11:30pm. Even though it was a small area to search, there was tons of metal junk and some deep silt/mud at that spot in the bay. Try as I might, I couldn’t come up with it after an extensive search. They thanked me for trying and I told them that I would keep it on my list and would try again whenever I was in the area. My next opportunity came about a month later at another minus low tide at night. Again, I found all sorts of junk, but, no ring. I was thinking it might be in deeper water, but, in walking out deeper, you would sink up to your knees in mud. Not going to be possible to search out there. Fast forward to November and another opportunity to hit the area during a daytime low tide. Went back over the same area and found tons more junk targets, but, after a half hour or so, success!, Scott’s wedding ring came up from a foot deep and into my scoop. A text later to an incredulous Scott and Caitlin where I found that they would be visiting again in town around Christmas. They asked me to hold on to it until then which I gladly agreed to. They came by the day after Christmas and picked up the ring. A pleasure to meet you both and thank you for the reward.
I was at work when I received a call from George inquiring about possibly recovering his family heirloom ring from his lagoon. We went over the details of when and how the ring was lost, and knowing the area quite well, decided it would be best if I swung by prior to committing to do the recovery. A few days later I met George at his house and after going over exactly what he did when the ring flew off into the lagoon, we decided with the 5′ tide swing this had to be done at low tide. The following week worked perfect with our schedules. My first attempt didn’t work out so well, it was blazing hot, the greenhead flies were eating us alive, and the mud on the bottom was black and bottomless. After about 2 hours I threw in the towel but assured him I would be returning for another attempt. I believe at that point George had given up hope of ever seeing his ring again. Over the next week or so our schedules didn’t work with the tide, so he agreed for me to swing by when conditions were right, whether he was home or not. WELL, after some adjustments to my recovery approach, and taking my assistant wife LEE, and good luck charm, the ring was in my scoop within 15 min. I knew this would mean the world to him, so I decided to do a surprise return, and set the whole thing up with his wife and son. I arrived just as they were getting back from fishing, put the ring in my scoop, and headed down the driveway where we met. We all talked a bit, I asked how they did fishing, then told him I did really well, and put my scoop out. He was kinda puzzled, and I said look in the bottom, and when he did, he could not believe his eyes. Then we let him in on the whole plan. I have the video of the return, just need to edit it, stay tuned. That moment right there is what makes doing recoveries so rewarding.
