Lost Key Fob Recovered on Surf City Beach, LBI by Edward Trapper – NJ Ring by Finder”
I was contacted by Brian regarding a lost key fob somewhere on a local beach. His daughter had been out the previous night walking along the shoreline, enjoying the full moon, when the key fob unknowingly fell from her purse.
The search area was quite large since she had covered a significant distance during her walk. Upon arrival, I began in the most probable drop zone but didn’t receive any signals.
I expanded the search northbound for approximately one block, attempting to follow what appeared to be her footprints, but still no luck. I then returned to the original area and searched closer to the waterline—again with no success.
Re-evaluating the situation, I decided to follow another set of tracks heading south that seemed consistent with her path. Roughly 50 feet into that direction, I received a strong signal. One scoop later, the lost key fob was recovered.
As is often the case, the item was located in the last area searched—but persistence paid off.
The key fob was successfully returned, and another client was relieved to have their property back.
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.
Gregg called and asked if I would be able to help him find his wedding ring he had lost on the dune walkover in Holgate NJ. We were having some unusual swarming mosquitos, and when he was heading over to the ocean they bombarded him when he was almost at the top. When he tried to swat them away, unfortunately his wedding ring flew off his hand and most likely landed up on the dunes somewhere. We arranged to meet the next afternoon, knowing his ring would be safe in that location. I had read on one of the local Facebook pages how bad they were after days of heavy rain, but never experienced anything quite this like this. I pulled up in the driveway, and no sooner had my door opened, I would venture to say, there were 20 or more in my truck. With that said, out came the sweatshirt and bug spray. I really hate mosquitos. Greg and I went over again exactly what had happened, as we walked quickly to the spot he had marked with some little sticks and stuff. I turned on my machine, put on the headphones, and for whatever reason it would not quiet down. I asked him to stand facing exactly the way he was, and to demonstrate the swatting motion he used when the ring went flying. It looked like it probably could have flown up in the dune grass, but with the motion he showed me, my hunch was it went straight down. So, as these nuisance bugs are like a cloud around us, I moved back to where I turned on the machine, which was also the spot he was when the ring came off. And now I know why the machine was so noisy!!!!! Bingo!!!! It was sitting right on top of his ring. The more detective work one can do the better. The entire hunt only lasted about 10 minutes at best. Making memories again on LBI.
I received a message from Yvonne asking if I would be able to get her husbands wedding ring out of the bay. It slipped off his finger getting out of their boat the night before. I was a bit worried about the water depth, knowing how much tide there is on the bay side of LBI, also how much mud was on the bottom, which always is a huge factor with water recoveries. They had returned home and explained that whatever worked best for me to have at it. I was able to go the following afternoon when the conditions were perfect. Luckily there was a dock ladder, because it was about 6′ down to the water, and around 5′ deep, also there was about 4″ of mud, so I was just able to maneuver with the water depth, but was still able to get the ring in my scoop within 30 minutes. The ring was returned about a week later, unfortunately I never got a chance to meet Alex or Yvonne, when Alex picked up the ring, I was in the water working on another successful recovery.