Alexandra had been with family at Little Cable Bay in Doubtless Bay, enjoying the sun and a warm but deep rockpool during the day.
She was understandably very upset to learn later that she had lost a very precious gold and diamond earring.
Her partner contacted me as to whether it was possible to recover it.
Unfortunately, I had spent the day conducting a dive search for a lost propeller in a marina at Whangarei, so was too tired to make the drive safely that night. however I was able to negotiate with my long-suffering boss to take the afternoon off the following day and headed up to search for it.
There were two high probability areas; Where they had been based on the beach, and the rockpool.
I quickly scanned the indicated area on the beach, although nothing found.
So, a quick trip back to the car to change in preparation to get wet in the rockpool, accessible only at low tide.
Alexandra had to head back to work so left me to it.
An earlier promising signal in the rockpool turned out to be an ancient 2c piece, followed by an old fishing knife, and many small fishing leads.
Confident the time-critical pool was cleared, I returned to the beach and started a systematic high level search of the dry sand.
About an hour later, the earring surfaced in the scoop, some 15m away from where it was supposed to be, and probably flicked off a towel.
Alexandra met me later in Coopers Beach for an exchange of big smiles and the earring.
