Diamond Engagement Ring lost in the sand, Lavallette NJ (OB3) recovered by Edward Trapper, NJ Ring Finder
I was spending the holiday weekend with my family at Island Beach State Park when I received a frantic call from Megan. She was incredibly upset, having just lost her rings in the sand moments before. While she had managed to recover two of them, her cherished engagement ring was nowhere to be found. I calmed her down, advising her to stop digging and simply wait, assuring her I would be there in a few hours. Since Megan and her family were staying for the day and had secured the area with their beach gear, there wasn’t an urgent rush. Had the situation been different, I would have dropped everything and headed there immediately.
When I arrived, Megan pointed out the area where the ring had gone missing, and I wasted no time getting to work. Initially, I had to clear a few loud signals that were overpowering the delicate tone of her ring. Once those were taken care of, my metal detector honed in on the ring’s unique signal. Within seconds, her engagement ring was safely in my scoop. The relief on her face made the search all the more rewarding!
Ally reached out to me, as a last-chance effort, in trying to get her precious engagement ring back, that unfortunately was dropped in the bay, on a nice Jersey Shore summer afternoon. She was very concerned there was no hope, as it had already been in the water for close to a week. I asked why she waited so long to call me, and her reply was “another local ring finder looked and had no luck”. I usually wont make it a practice to follow up behind another ring finder, but Ally hadn’t heard any more from him about his follow-up search, and was desperate at this point. After quite a long conversation, I decided Ally really needed me, and agreed to do the recovery. She sent me all the pertinent information, and I assured her I would go at the first possible brake in the, wind, and weather. The tides would also have to coincide with the search day. Our first conversation was 11 PM the day before, when I told her I would check in with her next morning. The following morning at 5 AM, as I was getting ready for work, I looked the weather over real good, and guess what, ” today is the day”. I text Ally and told her I was going for it today before low tide, she was thrilled with the timely updates, which she was not used to. I suited up with all my gear, and proceeded with the 1/3 mile walk in the water, just to get to the location it was lost. Once I was set up, I started to do a tight grid search, clearing over 20 signals, all of which had potential, to ensure her ring wasn’t missed by an overpowering signal. It really seemed like to many targets for an area that was supposedly searched, just 6 days prior, even though this is a huge boaters party area. And no they were not recent drops, as they were all down at least 4″ plus. I was super confident of my location, so I kept plugging along and after about 45 minutes my Metal Detector screamed out a low consistent tone, that almost immediately had Ally’s ring written all over it. While clearing the sand from my scoop, I could feel the tink, tink, tink of her ring, but at first glance, I didn’t see it hiding under the shells. But I knew that tink was NOT a shell, and gave the scoop a little wiggle, and there it was, WOW, was this a heart testing moment, seeing the diamonds sparkling back at me. My gut was right, I was in the right spot, and NJ Ring Finder just made someone’s last chance hopes a true reality. !!!!
I notice a text from Christopher requesting some help in locating Sandra’s David Yurman bracelet she had somehow lost on the beach in LBI the day before. They were not exactly positive that it was lost on the beach, but figured it was the most likely place it could be. The day before Sandra and some friends were doing some whale watching from the beach, and getting some excellent drone footage of the whales at the same time. That made me just a little nervous, as the whales move rather quickly up and down the beach, and it was very possible Sandra did the same. We arranged to meet at the house and walked up to the beach, while we discussed exactly what area they had spent most of the day prior. I asked Christopher to walk in front of me to box out the spot, as I followed behind, dragging my sand scoop around the perimeter. It was just a short while later, right in front of a group of people, that actually follow NJ Ring Finder on Facebook, where my metal detector got a loud signal, consistent with the bangle bracelet. Sure enough, It was Sandra’s bracelet, safe in my sand scoop, after spending two days buried in the Jersey Shore sand. Another near tragedy turned into memories !!!!
It was a beautiful day at the Jersey Shore, so why not take your dog to the beach??? After all, they love the water just as much as humans. And thats exactly what Lucy did that morning after she woke up. It was quite a few hours later that Lucy had a horrible mishap that you would wish on nobody !!!! She was throwing her dogs toy straight out into the water, when he beautiful Carter Trinity Rings flew off he finger. At that point she went into panic mode as many do, and began franticly searching without any luck. After about an hour she reached out to me. After getting all the details we had to act quickly, as the tide was coming in fast, do to the full moon. Once I arrived, she showed me the spot she believed the rings flew off, and I quickly got to work. I went out deep to start, knowing it would be over my head shortly. Having no luck, I worked 50′ paths back in to about knee deep water. Knowing time was running out, I went back out to about waist deep water. The greenhead fly’s were really having their feast on my upper body, so patients were growing very short. Making short sweeps, from waist to knee deep water, to expand my search area, to see if possibly they flew off to the side a bit. After about 25′ more feet to the south, BINGO !!!!! I got a fantastic hit, which I prayed was not a sinker or military debris, as this particular is littered with. After shaking out all the fine particles from my scoop, there, in the corner under a few shells, were Lucy’s rings. With a sigh of relief, I slowly walked out of the water, telling Lucy I was getting eaten alive. She looked very disappointed, figuring I was giving up, I told her to take a look into my scoop. Its at that very moment that makes doing this so so rewarding ! The emotions really tell a story of their own.
What a wonderful weekend it was going to be, fantastic weather, great company, car is all unloaded, and just sitting on the outside on the deck, having a cold drink, enjoying the ocean breeze, when a voice from inside hollers, “we have a problem” !!!! Linda went inside to see what I might be, and it was most peoples nightmare, a clogged toilet. One would think this is an easy fix, but unfortunately it was not. After 2 days of trying to plunge the clog, it was now backing up in the downstairs laundry slop sink. A local plumber on LBI come out to assess the situation, unfortunately without locating the outside cleanout he was not able to finish the job. She called the guy he recommended who handles much lager jobs, and would be equipped with a 200′ snake. Once again, without the location of the outside cleanout he was not able to do anything either. That’s where I come into play. After 2 days, Linda called me wondering if I was able to locate a sewer cleanout. My concern was, if it was all plastic my equipment would not be helpful. After a short conversation, I headed out to try and help. After looking the entire plumbing situation over, I received many possible signals, in the area the cleanout should be. After quite a bit of digging, the cleanout was located, and now Linda could have the plumber return to snake out the entire line. This was a “stinky” situation to start of the weekend, but ended up on a positive note.