Uncategorized Category | Page 420 of 504 | The Ring Finders

The difference in the meaning of “DEEP” water is relative to one’s height.

Mike’s loss was not noticed at once so my search area was within 3 areas and the path between them. A Google photo with the marked area and the fact he was playing with his kids my search plan was set. I started at low tide, and worked up the beach’s slope. The water was heavy with seaweed and I could search that area when the tide came in. After 2½ hours I was searching in the water but had little hope as I would be underwater at high tide and Mike was not when he lost his ring. Little did I know Mike stands well over 6’ tall and his head would still be above water long after I would have needed a long snorkel to stand next to him. I have dreamed of being that tall while detecting in deep water. Back to the search…I found the ring a half hour after entering the water within 10 feet of the center of the most likely area as identified by Mike on his area photo. If I only knew and there was not the floating seaweed, I may have found the ring in less time. Mike came to my home to pick up his ring of almost 13 years. What a personality, I knew I was in for an exciting talk form a very energetic man after only a few minutes on the phone with Mike. It was a memorable pleasure meeting Mike, his enthusiastic smile and returning his ring.

Fred Johnson,  a Ring Finder, got an email today at 3PM from Eric R., “last night my wife lost her rings while swimming…somewhere in 4-8 feet of water off our dock…possible area of perhaps 1000 square feet…only 3-5′ visibility at present…sand and silt bottom…is this something doable for you or is the depth an issue”. When it comes to ring finding we have few issues and dept of water is one but we have a fellow Ring Finder, Chuck Raison, who is our diver and who we can call on. Fred gave me a call and asked if I was available to help him find these rings. I called my brother Doug and headed down to Gull lake to meet Fred at Eric’s house.

After Eric had taken us out to the dock and showed us a buoy that his wife, Martha, swam around and then back to the dock. She was swimming back stroke to avoid their dog, Lucy, who was swimming in the lake too. When Martha got up to the ladder on the dock she noticed her rings were gone. The rings were an engagement ring, white gold with diamonds and a ten year anniversary ring, white gold with diamonds.

It was a beautiful afternoon to go out in the water so we started from the shore and made our way out to neck deep water with no signals. I got my life vest on and extended my detector shaft as long as it would go and checked out the deeper water around the buoy. Had I got a good signal we would have called in Chuck R. to dive for it. I made my way back to shallower water where I could just stand up in and got a good signal with my CZ21 and tried to scoop it but was unsuccessful so Fred got his Pin pointer and mask and went down under my coil and scooped up a handful of mud and the engagement ring came up sparkling in the water. I continued to search for another signal as I was sure it wasn’t too far away. After a few more dives by Fred and a good scoop we got the anniversary ring. This was truly a combination effort between Fred and myself.

A little before we got the good signal Martha came out on the dock and thanked us for coming out. Then we started back to the dock and told Martha it was pretty deep and we might have to get our diver. As I got on the dock I reached into my net with my finds and Martha saw something shining and started yelling and could hardly control herself. I said is this it? Fred then reached out his hand with the other ring and Martha hugged Fred, Doug and I as wet as we were, she couldn’t believe we found them. Martha said a prayer last night to Saint Anthony patron saint of lost items.

Eric and Martha’s daughter turned them on to The Ring Finders through Googling “lost ring”. Thank you webmaster for putting us on the top of the “lost rings” site.

Sam was playing volleyball in the water with friends and family when her rings that were welded together flew off her finger and into the water as she was setting the ball.  Everyone did the best they could to find rings, but came up empty-handed after a few hours of searching.

Sam called me up and left a message so I texted her and we made plans for me and a buddy to meet her husband and his friend at the lake the following day, a Thursday.

We thought it would be an easy hunt, but there was quite a bit of iron in the lake bottom making it hard to pick up targets.  Another problem we had was we were both using the same kind of metal detector and they were interfering with each other, making it hard to pick up signals.  We searched for a few hours and had to give up because it was getting dark.

The next day, we made plans to meet there again around 11:00 and to bring scuba gear in case the ring was deeper than we thought.  We got there around 9:30, that following Saturday – two buddies and me – to get started early.

Mike stayed out of the water to avoid interference while Matt and I gridded the area for about 45 minutes.  We were getting worried that we weren’t going to find the ring when Mike decided to join us.  He entered the water and immediately dug the ring in about 4 feet of water!

Sam and her husband pulled up right when we were getting dried off and packing the gear back into the vehicle.  Sam was super thrilled to get her ring back and we were all thrilled to give it to her!

This time the ring was lost on the beach.  Brittany had taken her ring off, placing it in her beach bag for safe keeping while she played with her kids in the water.   But when she reached home the ring was gone.   She went back the next day to look for it, but had no success.

Metal detecting hunters search that beach daily, so hunting partner Gregg Larabel and I weren’t optimistic about finding the ring when we made the trip to the park three days later.  It was really helpful that Brittany had provided us with pictures from their day at the beach, enabling us to pinpoint the exact spot where she had been sitting.  We started a grid of the area, and after 2 passes I found the ring about 10 feet from the sign post shown in her photo(below).

We gave Brittany a call and since she had just finished work nearby she said she would meet us in the parking lot.  She arrived with her mother and father, and Gregg showed her some of the junk we had found.  Her comment was “It’s ok, thank you for your help in trying to find my ring.”   I then said, “and I also found this” and showed her the ring.  Her face lit up like the sun and she had hugs for both Gregg and me.  Mother and father also got out of the car and joined in the celebration.

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