As my wife and I were walking through Laurel Hill Cemetery Association today, 9/15/24, on a 5 mile walk, my phone rang. The caller identified himself as George and someone in his group, had just lost a White Gold Wedding Ring, with three small diamonds in it. George asked if I could come and search for it. I asked him where he was located and when the ring was lost. George stated the ring had been lost an hour ago and they were on Ogunquit Beach, in front of the Norseman Resort. I told George that I could absolutely help him out, I just needed to walk back home, first. I would leave to search for the ring, without even changing out of my sweaty workout clothing. After all, time is of the essence when an item is lost in a public place. The sooner I can get there, the better chance of a recovery.
So, Cheryl and I went straight home, put my beach flops on and headed to Ogunquit, Maine. Since I had been on a search and recovery yesterday, in Eliot, Maine, all my equipment was still in my car. I wasn’t sure about the traffic on route one, since we are now in mid September. The summer traffic is horrendous when trying to drive route one in Wells and Ogunquit. The traffic turned out to be better than I thought and only added about 15 minutes to the drive, from our home, in Saco, Maine. Weekend summer traffic may add anywhere from 30-45 minutes, trying to get through the route one coastal traffic.
Once we arrived, I called George and let him know that we were there. George told me his son would be there in one minute and bring me back, to where the ring was lost. Once George’s son brought us to the area, there were a group of people and a young woman stepped right up and said that it was her ring, that was lost and her name is Sophia. Sophia told me that the ring is a heirloom wedding ring and is part of a set, that goes with a matching engagement ring. She then tells me the wedding and engagement rings were originally her late Grandmother’s and was just heartbroken that she had lost it in the very fine, soft sand. Sophia also told us the she and her mother were visiting Maine, from Japan. Wow, the pressure was on now, to find the ring. I couldn’t let Sophia go home to Japan, without her heirloom ring.
I asked Sophia to walk me through what happened, when the ring was lost. Sophia told me that after arriving at the location, on the beach, she proceeded to take off her footwear and socks. As she was taking her socks off, her grandmothers wedding ring, came off and flew into the sand and out of sight. The entire group had a good idea, of where the ring had landed and proceeded to visually and manually screen the sand. They would run their fingers through the sand and push the sand around, in the hopes of finding the ring. Once they realized this was not going to be fruitless, Sophia did a very smart thing. She took a beach blanket and laid it over the area she thought the ring had landed and that they had searched. The blanket provided protection, from people walking through the area, on this extremely busy beach day. Now, no one would step on the ring, pushing it deeper into the sand or even moving the ring out of the area.
Once Sophia removed the beach blanket, she gave me her grandmother’s engagement ring and I place it on top of the sand, ran my coil over it, so everyone in the group could see and hear how I find rings. It also helps me knowing what a matching ring will sound like and what I am looking for, on my detectors VDI screen. The engagement ring rang up with a very low sounding tone and a solid repeating 12-02 on the screen. I then threw a .925 Silver ring into the sand, so that the group could hear the different sound that the different metals make. They were impressed with how different the gold and silver ring sounded and I always like to show my clients, just how a metal detector works. It’s a win, win.
So, once the demonstration of the rings were concluded, I started the search for Sophia’s heirloom wedding ring. I had brought my CTX-3030 metal detector, with the 17” coil. This large coil covers a lot of beach and helps reduce the time needed to find the target. I started the search with my back to the dunes and I was facing the water. I started swinging my coil, side to side and not even 30 seconds had passed, when I received a beautiful sounding low tone, in my headphones. The VDI screen was reading 12-02, exactly as Sophia’s grandmother’s engagement ring. WOW, Same tone and VDI reading, to a matching ring, within 30 seconds, in the area the ring was lost. I turned to the group and told them “I think this is the ring”. I was that confident. I submerged my pin pointer into the sand and moved it around the area that my coil had detected the target. Once located, with the pin pointer, I grabbed a handful of sand, nothing. Grabbed another handful of sand and I felt a ring, held it up for everyone to see and all kinds of applause and clapping broke out, even from surrounding people, who didn’t even know Sophia or me. Sophia had a few tears running down her face and she was hugging her mother. She so emotionally relieved to have her grandmother’s ring back that I could see her trembling a little. Just a few moments earlier, Sophia wasn’t even sure if she would be going home to Japan, with the ring and now she has it back on her finger. It is so gratifying, to be able, to help such wonderful people like Sophia and her family reclaim such a precious piece of heirloom jewelry. No better feeling, in the world. Smiles on Cloud Nine, once again. 😁
Caitlin called In reference to locating her necklace, that was lost on the beach. She told me she had left to go home, but knew the exact location where it could be. She explained that she took the necklace off, and placed them inside her hat, which she then placed on her blanket for safe keeping. When she was getting ready to leave for the day, she had forgotten about the necklace, and placed the hat on her head and started walking up the dune path to head home. It was very windy that day and at one point the hat had blown off her head. After retrieving the hat, she continued over the walkway. When she got to the top, she realized she had placed her necklace in the hat and it was gone. She went back to take a look he wasn’t able to find anything. I was able to go the following morning, and after about 20 minutes I was able to locate the necklace. Unfortunately, the cross was nowhere to be found. My guess is the cross never came out of the hat and was lost in a different location.
