“Now you see it, now you don’t” in Grand Rapids, Michigan
I got a call from Lois F. telling me her boyfriend threw her rings over her garage. When Dave Boyer (Ringfinder friend) and I got to the house Lois explained to us that after a disagreement her fiance’ took her rings off the table and walked out the side door of her house and threw her 3 rings over her garage. That was the scenario. Lois had a video from her security cameras showing him going through the motion of tossing something. The rings we were looking for was a diamond engagement, a grandmothers ring and a mothers ring. We started our search in her neighbors back yard which was deep grass and overgrown with bushes, flowers, metal fence and trash. We then looked on top of the roof of the garage and her back yard. After going through the yards sometimes on our hands and knees we found nothing. We thought we would find at least one of the rings but did not. Our suspicions, after repeated views of the video, was that the boyfriend never threw the rings.
Lois called her fiance’ and asked him, “the search did not turn up any rings, did you really throw them?” He said he was trying to get her attention and would not throw $6,000 worth of rings away. So a video does not always tell the true story. I am sure they have made up and are now happy in their lives together.
Thursday morning early I received a call from Chris. He and the family were playing on Pensacola Beach late Wednesday afternoon when his wife, Katarina, noticed her engagement ring was missing. Chris asked if I could help, that he and the family were due to check out of the condo they were staying in a few hours and had to travel back to Austin that day. They had a photo of Katarina or the beach with the ring on her finger and she hadn’t gone in the water so the assumption was it was lost somewhere in the sand. I told him I would be glad to help and would come immediately. Fortunately my gear was already charged up and in my van. I quickly kissed my wife bye and headed for the beach. I arrived about two hours before condo check out time so I got with Chris and Katarina right away and got details about where they were on the beach and the activities they took part in. They pointed out approximately where they set their beach chairs, but there was significant surf the night before and the beach had significant erosion from the waves. Now beach erosion is very common here, sand is constantly, moving around, but their spot was able to set the longitude axis so we started there. Katarina said they played catch with a ball and she had jumped up several time with her arms raised with finger reaching out, which sounded like the place to start searching. All in all the area was pretty big, between one half and two thirds acre. Because the ring was lost in late afternoon and this was the next morning I assumed it was not deep in the sand, my first mistake. Because they were under time restraints I was working faster than normal, my second mistake. Two hours later we got together to reassess and I started again but this time I set the detector to search deeper and moved much slower. I started from the spot where the beach chairs were located and followed the anticipated route Katarina may have taken to where she played ball. About half way to that spot I got a fairly good signal but it was two to three times deeper that I expected. I set my recovery scoop as deep as I could so I could get under the target causing no scratches or damage to a ring, spread the sand on the surface and checked for a signal, got nothing. I quickly stuck my detector coil in the hole and received a much better signal, carefully digging a second scoop of sand and spreading it out I ran the detector over it and pinpointed the ring. Reached down and held it up for Katarina. She was overjoyed! Now there were probably thirty people on the beach many who had watched me hunting not really knowing why. When Katarina received her ring and held it up most of those thirty or so people understood and started clapping. Her two daughters were excited and when to get their Dad. I apologized to Chris for my two mistakes that delayed their trip home, but he didn’t care he was just glad they were returning home with the ring that had been on her finger for 15 years! I think both had half way come to accept the ring was lost forever. It was a happy ending all around. I do not know how the ring was able to get maybe 8 to 10 inches deep and was glad I found it after about three and a half hours but I would have kept going till it was recovered.
