Man’s White Gold Wedding Band Goes Swimming in the Ocean, Found and Returned Sunset Beach NC
This adventure started on Monday, June26th when I got the following text message at 7:19am. “Good Morning, I got your info from your website. My son is visiting from Dallas and lost his wedding ring at sunset beach 2 nights ago. We were at the beach access between 13th and 14th, straight ahead at the water’s edge. It’s a white gold band engraved “Cris 4.29.22.” I’m hoping and praying you can help us. My name is Jill.” I didn’t see the text until almost 11am and when I did, I called her to get additional details. I found out her son, Tom had been in the water around 7pm, which was about an hour and a half after low tide. Jill also said she had a picture with a time stamp at 7:12pm of Tom showing the ring, and another one around 7:28pm of him without the ring. We discussed a few other factors and I told her I’d be there around 6 pm to work the outgoing tide. She said they’d be there around 7 pm to watch the sunset.
I showed up a little after six and stated a north/south gridline from the shore out to about waste deep water. I was chugging along when a young man approached me and asked if I was looking for a wedding ring. When I said yes, he informed me that I went one access to far. Well, I got a little more exercise if nothing else. When I met Jill, her husband, Steve, Tom and his wife Cris, they showed me about where they had been sitting while Tom was swimming in the ocean when he lost the ring. I started my north/south gridlines again, going out as far as the sand bar. I worked the area until just before sunset. I told Jill I’d be back at about 730am in the morning and called it a night.
I had called a buddy to see if wanted to tag along and I met him shortly after I arrived on the beach. My plan was to start west of where Jill and the family had been sitting on Saturday night and make my way east. There were very few targets, a few bottle caps and pull tabs and one penny. After about an hour and a half the tide turned and was now coming in. I kept the grid going and I was about 40 yards down the beach from where they had been sitting. I made the turn to come back towards shore when I got a signal. Being a white gold man’s wedding band I was expecting to see between 9 and 11 on the VDI (visual display indicator) depending on the width of the ring. This signal was bouncing around like there may be two targets close together. Or it could be caused by the way the target was sitting on the ocean floor, or the wave action off the sand bar, but a 9 kept popping up. I dug a big scoop of sand and checked the hole – I had the target in the scoop. I was going to walk back to shore to dump the scoop so I wouldn’t take the chance of losing the target back in the ocean. As I looked down on the scoop, I saw a shiny object and what looked like a half a ring. Again, not wanting to take any chances, I carefully reached down and pulled out a ring. I tried my best to read the inscription, but without my glasses I was lucky to see the ring! I walked over to my buddy and he couldn’t read it either. As we’re packing up to go, a nice lady was walking down the beach. I asked her if she could read the inscription and she read Cris 4 29 22. Bingo!! I had Tom’s ring. I took a picture and sent it and a text to Jill saying “Ba Booooom!!!!” She instantly responded with “Whaatt??!!! We are soooooo excited!!!!” I called her and told her I’ll just run it by their house, if she’d give me the address since it’s on my way home. It was important to get the ring back to Tom because he and Cris were heading back to Dallas at 5pm. When I pulled into the driveway, everybody was waiting in the front yard. I handed Cris the ring so she could put it back on Tom’s finger. Returning someone’s treasure never gets old and their smiles tell it all.
Jill – Thank you for contacting me to help find Tom and Cris’ lost treasure.
Tom and Cris – I wish you two only the best. Take care of each other!!!
Jim
