Doubtless Bay Tag | Page 2 of 3 | The Ring Finders

Tiny Gold Ear Ring Found in Sand at Cable Bay.

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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Danielle contacted me after losing her tiny gold and diamond earring at Little Cable Bay, between Mangonui and Taipa.
She had spent some considerable time looking for it, but in the dry sand a tiny earring that blended in perfectly would have been virtually invisible to the eye.
I wasn’t able to get away from work for a few hours, but in this instance it worked out well with the tides.
She had sent me a photo which showed some trees lined up as a reference, so I could make a start as soon as I got there.
It didn’t take long to locate myself in the right spot and I started work, a very tedious process with a lot of interference from metallic rubbish that saturated the dry sands above the high tide line.
Danielle arrived soon after and was able to give me her best guess as to where it might be.
With a high probability location now identified, I changed up a few settings and started listening for the tiniest wisp of gold in among all the can tabs and flakes of tinfoil.
It was hard mentally processing each individual signal, digging the probable signals and flagging the unlikely, but possibles to revisit later if necessary.
About 10 minutes in, with the coil running under the surface of the loose and fluid dry sand, I got a repeatable signal only just audible over nearby rubbish.
I ran my hand through the sand, nothing was seen and the pinpointer didn’t pick it up, but I had moved the target. Was it yet another tiniest fragment of ancient drink can?
Slowly I progressively eliminated ever smaller piles of sand until there was one small heap left.
I grabbed it and slowly opened out my hand, scrutinising the grains as they fell through the slightest gap between my fingers, until resting in my palm was the distinctive shape of an earring.
Danielles eyes lit up when she realised her precious lost earring had been found in amongst several trillion grains of sand.
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Lost wedding band in Sand at Taupo Bay – Found!

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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 Taupo Bay is a beautiful surf beach, and whilst the bigger waves can be powerful, the shallow runout wash into the beach shallows is an ideal place to play with the kiddies while on holiday – As Michael was doing with his 2yo daughter this morning.

As he lifted her up out of the water though, he felt his platinum wedding ring of 7 years slip off his finger – and vanish.

Rings sink almost instantly in mobile sands, and efforts to locate it were fruitless.

This afternoon, Michael posted on the local Taupo Bay social media group asking people to be on the lookout for it.

Word filtered through to me, and knowing the ring would already be under the sand, I got in contact with Michael.
The tide was approaching full, and a similar tide state to when Michael lost his ring, so I dropped everything and headed up – Worst case, I could work the last of the rising tide, and then follow it back down again into the night if necessary.
On arrival, I asked Michael to mark a line down the beach as his best guess as to the alignment the ring might be on, “We’ll see how good you are”, I said with a grin.This would be my reference for the grid extending out either side.With the tide rising, I started in the water and worked my way ashore.
Aside from a few ‘teasers’, likely deep fishing sinkers or pulltabs off drink cans, the beach was pleasantly clear of trash.

I emerged out of the shallows and continued the grid into the edge of the waters reach.
As I passed Michaels line in the sand, I got a nice low ‘double-hit’ of a shallow target.
I dug my hand in, and from about 2 inches down, emerged the ring – Smack in the middle of Michaels line!

I’ve often had rings up to 30-40metres, or more, away from the “It’s Here” mark, but never actually exactly on the line. Definitely one for the books.

With the ring handed back, a handshake and a few photos, I was on my way back home.

And Michael was out of the ‘doghouse’🙂

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Lost Wedding Ring Found in Surf Two Days Later

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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Two days ago, Scott had been fishing from a remote beach in Doubtless bay. While packing up, he noticed he had lost his white gold wedding ring during the day.

Thinking he had lost the ring while gutting and cleaning the catch in the water, he spent some time looking for it. With light failing and the propensity for rings to sink quickly in mobile sands, he was unable to locate his lost ring.

Fortunately, he had the presence of mind to tie a small orange fishing float to some grass at the edge of the dunes…and contacting an experienced Ringfinder as soon as possible meant that the chances of recovering it were as good as they get.
So, a little after 4am this morning, I pulled out of the driveway and started the 2hr drive north to meet Scott at 6.

Given the remote location, it was likely we would only get one shot at this and I wanted to maximise the lower half of the tide in case it became a protracted search.
Big thanks do have to go to Scott for making the effort to meet me on site at ‘daft o clock’, it is so invaluable having the ring owner present at searches to discuss the circumstances of loss.

Our little convoy bounced up the rough road up onto “Puwheke” – not an insignificant hill on the Karikari peninsula, and a prominant landmark visible from many kilometres in all directions.
Once parked up, Scott pointed far into the distance…distance being the key word! The route we would have to take around the hill and down to the beach looked like one of those that somehow always feels like it’s uphill in both directions with gorse, steep slopes and wet, slippery rank grass growth.

The beach itself was very pleasant though, the sort of sand you see on deserted tropical islands – nice flat hardpacked white quartz sand (The quartz crystals actually ‘squeak’ with the friction if you scuff your foot in the dry sand).

One and a half kilometres from the cars, we arrived at where he had lost his ring. A small dayglo fishing float glowing orange in the grass.
While I got setup, Scott marked out some boundaries and I made a start in the dry fluffy sand. At least, in the middle of nowhere there was no trash or background chatter to mask any signals. A rare luxury with recoveries.

The first search line went straight down the beach and out into the shallows. Unsure how long I’d be searching, I was trying to stay dry at this stage of the exercise, the ocean waters not yet warmed from summer.
I turned and started the return line back to the beach. Three paces – and I got a clean tone, the sound was either that of a deep lead fishing weight, or a relatively shallow gold ring. I knew which it would be! Time to dig.

The white sand easily flowed out of the scoop, leaving Scotts ring nestled in the corner.

The ring safely back on Scott’s finger, we started the long walk back to the cars.

Uphill all the way…

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Ring lost swimming at Taupo Bay. Found!

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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I occasionally get calls from people that I have previously recovered lost rings for, usually along the lines of, “I’ve done it again…”, or, “A friend/neighbour has lost their…”
Krista phoned me to say that a guest had been swimming at Taupo Bay and had lost his Gucci ring in almost exactly the same spot that I had recovered her own treasured heirloom ring at the start of this year.

It was late afternoon and the light would soon be fading, however the tide was falling so I had to try and catch the first low tide that night.
I arrived at Taupo Bay and was relieved to see that this popular surf beach had virtually no break today – I knew the area of loss would be exposed at low tide, however that wouldn’t be until about 10pm so I waded out and made a start.
The water hadn’t warmed to summer temperatures yet, but was definitely warm enough that the wetsuit wasn’t needed. A very strong cross current was feeding a rip nearby and sand was being visibly moved along the beach and at times sucked from under my feet. One of the reasons that water recoveries have to be carried out as soon as possible.

As I worked the search patterns Hayden, the `lossee`, and Krista settled in to watch the worlds most boring spectator sport.
The high probability area yielded nothing and as both tide and night fell, I started to expand the search out to 20m…30m… back across the area they had been swimming.
Several hours and multiple overlapping grid patterns later, I was convinced it wasn’t where it was supposed to be (they almost never are).
The others had long since left me to it so I texted to advise a no-find… So far.

On the drive home, I replayed the search over and over in my mind. Re-analysing the circumstances of loss against the fact that the ring was not located despite a near 100% probability of detection over the entire swimming area.
Hayden said he had been sweeping his hand through the water, and he had felt it come off.
The ring had to have been airborne, unseen by Hayden – hidden among the water spray/droplets.
Stated to be ‘silver’, I have found that this can mean it just looks silver and can be anything from platinum, white gold, or titanium. All with very different densities and responses. As an example, if you had two rings in your hand, white gold and titanium, and threw them, the gold would travel much, much further than the titanium due to the greater mass.

How far would a ring go? The original search area had discounted the lighter titanium.

Back on the road early next morning for the hour drive to Taupo Bay again in order to catch the next tide. When I don’t find a ring it becomes a personal challenge. It’s partially this tenacity which enables me to find rings which others have tried for and given up, or missed, due to inexperience or unsuitable detectors.

I had the luxury of daylight and a large tide window this time.

Some time was spent painstakingly eliminating several dozen unlikely but must-be-confirmed signals in amongst a buried jumble of fragments of reinforced concrete and other ‘hot’ rocks with high metal content under the sand. All metal targets were proven to be trash.
Then I moved onto a wider area search based on a couple of underarm throws of my test rings – in the opposite direction to where they had been swimming.
30 minutes later I got a very clear silver tone – The scoop went in, and from 30cm under the sand on the edge of yesterdays rip current emerged Hayden’s lost sterling silver ring.

I love sending texts that simply say, “FOUND!” – They’re usually followed immediately after by my phone ringing with an excited and unbelieving voice at the other end 🙂

 

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Gold Ring Found in Doubtless Bay Chicken Coop

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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I was recommended to Kim and Kevin after Kevin had lost his Great Grandfathers ring, passed down to the eldest son through the generations. His father sadly passed away recently and Kevin became the new custodian.  Understandably, the ring carries a huge sentimental attachment.
Kevin wasn’t sure where, or when, he had lost it.
He just knew that it wasn’t beside the sink after he’d finished washing his hands after working in the garden that morning.
He had a few sleepless nights before the day of the search!

On site, I retraced Kevins activities. I made note of each area of interest and ranked them as to the likelihood of holding the ring as we wandered around the property.
There were three probable areas, but I had brought the remote camera with me, just in case it got all forensic with nooks and crannies (Or “Crooks and Nannies” as I like to call them).

First up was the garden where he had been planting seedlings and weeding. Lots of wisps of wire and assorted metal with the big coil, I switched to the small handheld coil.
This was better in among the random signals, but slow going to ensure every coil sweep was overlapped to avoid missing a single square inch.

Then I headed down to the chicken run where he had spread some hay out.
Several problems were encountered in here; The abundance of metal chicken mesh in close quarters, the fact that every time I stopped to investigate a target under the hay at least one chicken adopted me as a fancy perch with foot-warming function… and, let’s just say I was glad I was wearing disposable gloves as well!

Despite the assistance in removing various invertebrates, the chickens and I did not locate the ring in the run.Spotting fresh straw had also been placed in the nest boxes, I moved outside – thankful to be vertical and chicken-free.
I worked my way through each of the nest boxes, when my fingers closed on a heavy, round ring buried under the sawdust.

I left it under the watchful gaze of the chooks, while I took my gear back to the car then called out to Kevin.
“I’ve got something of yours!”,  and led him and his wife to the chicken run.

I opened up the nest box and Kevin reached in to retrieve the ring.

It remains a mystery how and why it came off here, as it is a tight fit on his finger and the nest box was not a ‘likely’ area.
We could only assume that the strings when carrying the bales had worked it down his finger without him noticing – only to drop off as he fluffed up the sawdust.

Regardless, Kevin had now been reunited with his Great Grandfathers ring.

Job done.

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Fathers Gold Ring Lost – and Found.

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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Last week, Mike was clearing out some perishables prior to heading away for a few days, throwing the bread from his deck out to the feeding frenzy of seagulls on his front lawn.
Afterwards he noticed his irreplacable gold and pounamu (Maori: NZ Jade) ring handed down from his father was missing from his finger.
A search of the lawn failed to locate it, so he turned to me for help.
Mike had to start his journey south, so he sent me the address of his property and I would travel up after work that afternoon.
On arrival, I was met with a very short and well manicured lawn – Nowhere for a large ring to hide, although rings can settle in unusual orientations, or bounce and tuck themselves under vegetation to break up the typical ‘ring’ shape that the brain doesn’t register when visually searching.
I quickly cleared the likely area where it may have landed on the lawn then started to work outwards – garden edges, against the fence and in amongst the shubs.
My concern was that a seagull may have picked it up with, or instead of bread only to drop it in a random direction and distance.
I had just about cleared the entire area in front of the house when I picked up a strong signal beside the gate at the entrance, and there it was.
Another couple of feet and it would have been on the public grass verge outside the property, another few yards and it would have been on the road…
It seems the seagull theory may indeed have been correct!
I texted Mike the good news that his ring was now safe and secure, he replied that he would collect it on his return.

I had about 30 minutes of light left so headed to the local beach where I have a couple of outstanding historical losses. Unfortunately I have many people who only learnt of my service months or even years after their loss of a precious item of jewellery on the local beaches. Whilst most are not viable for an immediate search effort, they all get added to my ‘Black Book’, and any time I am in the area I try to commit some time to searching for these. In the dynamic marine environment this is definitely a waiting game until sand and tides conspire to put the ring or necklace within range of the coil. This has taken up to 5 years for one particular ring, 3 years for another… Unfortunately sometimes they may also be found and ‘collected’ by a non ringfinder metal detectorist and added to a private collection of ‘treasure’.

The sand was silent on this occasion, although a few dozen pieces of metallic litter were removed from the environment (can pulltabs, corroded cans, bottle caps, fish hooks and an old fishing knife…Any litter found is always removed, primarily to improve the environment, but also to enhance current and future search efforts).
I was privileged though to be able to view some awesome transient ta moko sand art by an unknown and very talented artist, already partially lost to the stream flowing over the beach by the time I encountered it. It was still pleasing to see that people were consciously walking around, rather than over the design.

A week later I caught up with Mike as he made his way home. During a poorly timed torrential downpour, it was a very swift handover but I managed to get a quick photo for my collection of folks I’ve reunited with their lost taonga (Maori: treasure).

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Keyfob Missing in Long Grass for Two Days at Doubtless Bay, Found.

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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It’s not always about reuniting a sentimental piece, sometimes it just avoids an unnecessary hassle and expense of replacement 🙂
Two days ago Gayle was showing some friends around the property.
In their travels she took her jacket off and tied it around her waist, the car fob safely inside the pocket…
When they returned to the house, Gayle realised the key fob was no longer in the jacket. Nor was it in the car, or to be seen on the nicely mown lawn – which meant it was somewhere along their route across the rough grass paddock, or one of several possible routes up and around a headland.
After retracing their steps with no luck, Gayle gave me a call.
I headed straight up as soon as I left work, and Gayle braved the rain to show me the route she thought they had walked.
A quick cursory sweep along the probable route yielded nothing other than an old beer can, tent peg and hinge spring, so I started the comprehensive search beginning at the area of highest probability.
Five minutes later, the detector gave a solid “this should be what you’re looking for” signal and I parted the grass to reveal the wayward keys.
Sitting end on, and tucked into the kikuyu thatch it would have been very difficult to spot by eye.
I held the keys up and Gayles face broke into a smile.
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Coopers Beach Lost Key While Swimming

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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Ring Finder – Ring Recovery Specialist…Lost ring? Lost necklace? Lost keys?… Metal Detector Service – Call ASAP 021 401626

I was at work when Heather phoned.
She had been swimming at Coopers Beach and when caught by a rogue wave, her expensive-to-replace chipped car key slipped from inside her costume.
I made a quick call to my boss to check he was okay with me disappearing for half the day (again!), and after a few hasty discussions with others arranging cover while I was away, I was on the road.
Unfortunately, I work about halfway between home and Coopers Beach, so had a half hour drive each way to get the gear before continuing north to the site.

I arrived just before low tide to see Heather and her mother doing ‘The Walk’ that I have seen many times. Heads down, wandering aimlessly whilst staring intently at the sand. Occassionally scuffing their feet at something that could be a key, but disappointingly turning out to be a black pebble or bit of shell.

Thankfully, Heather had a video of where they had been swimming, showing a distinctive clump of seaweed and a pattern of shells in the foreground. From this I was able to define a reasonably tight arc that the key might be in but people often drift to one side or another. The distribution of seaweed along the beach showed me which way the current was running so I marked the likely maximum up-current limit and would work downcurrent. It was now just a matter of passing the coil over the key. Miss it by 2 inches and I could walk straight past it.
Recoveries take a huge amount of self-discipline. The hardest are when they stretch into the night, the rain begins to fall and the hours continue to slide past…and that’s just on land.
But today was calm, sunny and a beautiful location.

I set up a grid on the wet sand at the edge of the water as I waited for the tide to drop.
I was digging the odd coin, bottle cap or ancient copper boat nail. You must verify every target in this game, a trashy area will sometimes have you checking over a hundred potentials.
The beach here was away from the popular areas so thankfully relatively devoid of false targets.
Dry land completed, I started to move out into the water.

About thigh deep, just deep enough to get inconveniently soaked by waves, I picked up a solid iron tone under the loose sand and shell.
The key was about 10cm down in this very mobile, almost fluid, shell mix and it took a couple of bites with the scoop to lift it out of the hole. I held it up to Heather with a big grin, and waded ashore.

…Then headed back to work to catch up.

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Ring Lost in Surf. Found after 3 Weeks, a Cyclone and Tsunami !

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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Ring Finder – Ring Recovery Specialist…Lost ring? Lost necklace? Lost keys?… Metal Detector Service – Call ASAP 021 401626

Three weeks ago, Ray was on Tokerau Beach in Doubtless Bay engaging in that iconic Kiwi summer pursuit, digging in the sand for Tuatuas.
Regrettably, his sentimental gold and diamond ring did what so many other lost rings have also done while gathering these tasty shellfish, it slipped from his finger into the sand, and vanished.
A week later he left me a phone message asking if I was able to assist in finding his lost ring.

I arranged to meet him the coming weekend and see if I could get his ring back to him.

That’s when nature intervened with a double whammy in the form of Cyclone Cody pumping waves up to 5+m onto the coast.
Then one from left-field, the eruption of Hunga-Tonga (which I heard in New Zealand, some 2,400km away!) which sent tsunami surges out across the entire Pacific.
….I decided to reschedule the ring recovery for the following weekend!
There was real potential for substantial sand movement with these combined events, but my safety always comes first.

The appointed morning arrived and I thanked Ray for making the effort to meet me on site at dawn in order to catch the low tide. As he referred to photos taken on the day to sort out where he had been, I got kitted up to get wet.

I set up a ‘beat’ of around 60m width to try and allow for any positional errors in Rays recollection, and waded out into the break.

While the sea was calm for this surf beach, the storm had brought in tonnes of loose weed which instantly wrapped around the detector adding massive drag. It wasn’t practical to keep lifting the coil out of the water every few seconds to shake it off so I had to put up with it. It felt like I was mopping the ocean floor and had to change arms every few minutes.
Added entertainment was the water being infested by loads of Eagle Rays feeding on the Tuatuas in the turbid water. When I got too close, or accidentally clipped them with the coil, they would take off through the wash like jet fighters. I love these guys, but having to do the ‘Stingray Shuffle’ through the weed was really fatiguing…

I had completed about three or four sweeps across the search area when the detector sounded off on a faint target, there had been no trash for once, so in my mind this was going to be the ring.
The hole went deeper and deeper, only to reveal an old lead fishing weight! I shook a basketball sized lump of weed off the coil and continued on, disappointed.
15 minutes later, another quiet tone in the headphones could be heard over the waves and wind.
Quiet, but crisp.
The scoop went in, missed it, another bite went deep into the bottom of the hole – Check and the sand was quiet. Whatever it was was in the scoop.
I shook the sand and shell out through the scoop when I heard that familiar clatter of a ring.
I secured it and slogged ashore through the weed and rays.

The sequence of reactions, I have seen many times.
Initially resignation in their eyes as they saw me walking up the beach after apparently giving up, changing to disbelief when I removed the ring from inside my glove – then amazement that the ring had actually been found, and was back on Rays finger.

Some detectorists collect rings, I prefer to collect smiles 🙂

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Heirloom Signet Ring lost at Taupo Bay – Huge potential area, Found by Experienced Ring Finder

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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Ring Finder – Ring Recovery Specialist…Lost ring? Lost necklace? Lost keys?… Metal Detector Service – Call ASAP 021 401626
Got a message from Krista
” Lost my ring at Taupo Bay today”.
After delving deeper, it transpired she might have lost her treasured heirloom rose gold ring at one of several locations: Washing the car, washing the dog, Potting/manuring some plants, swimming with the dog at one end of Taupo Bay, or when a boogie board was taken from her at the other end… HUGE potential area and with no start point. This is where experience takes precedence over ‘brute force’ (eg trying to cover every square centimeter). I met Krista  at her home, quickly eliminating the car/dog washing areas and the freshly manured garden plants as I waited for her to get ready to head down to the beach, although I already had a hunch where the lost ring would be found… I then followed her to the beach.
There were two locations of interest here, where she went into the water with her dog, and where a boogie board was taken off her. I chose to clear the latter first as it was at highest risk of being picked up by a casual holidaying metal detectorist as it was in the dry sand zone above the high tide mark and this time of year, coils are prevalent…
I cleared the highest probability area of the dry sand and with the tide about to turn shifted my focus to where she had taken the dog into the sea. I could return to complete the dry sand with a high intensity search if necessary.
At the swim spot at the other end of the bay, I asked Krista to retrace her movements and interactions from when she parked the truck. I mentally marked out the highest probability area on the sands as she retold her activities that afternoon and I settled in for a long search into the evening… I typically allow a minimum of four hours which, from experience, is sufficient to recover 90% of items. If the item is at a high risk of being lost to other detectorists, casual passers-by or a dynamic environment, eg surf, I often extend the hours to try and secure the lost item in the initial search phase.
After several circuits of the search pattern, I hit a nice solid tone at the waters edge – 3 inches under the surface lay her heirloom signet ring. It was outside the area she thought it would be [Trust No-one, Assume Nothing, Check everything] but the important thing was – It had been found.
I held it up and started to walk back towards her, a big grin on my face, a grin matched only by hers once she realised it was actually her lost ring and not someones elses.
All done, I packed up and headed home to get ready for my day job.
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