Gold Diamond Engagement Ring and Matching Band Lost, Recovered and Returned outside Wilmington, DE!
Thanks for the referral from fellow Ring Finder, John Favano. Judy and Tom got in touch with me to help them locate Judy’s lost diamond engagement ring and matching wedding band. This is one of those ring finding missions where you’re thinking you have a slim chance of being successful in finding. Judy and Tom went to a local winery the day before where they met some friends and relaxed in a grassy outdoor space….both the area where they parked and sat were basically grassy fields. Judy knew she left the house with her rings on….and when she got home later…they were both missing off her hand. Unfortunately she had no recollection of taking them off or noticing when they were missing while at the winery. She did say that sometimes while her husband was driving she would take her rings off to moisturize her hands. So i figured the best chance would be checking where they parked…assuming Judy took off the rings, put on her lap in car, forgot to put back on…then got out of car. If I didn’t find in parking area I would proceed to area where they sat in grassy fields…then continue to scan the entire area. I met Tom at the winery and he had a good idea of where they exactly parked …I set my machine to just target gold signals…and began to scan the parking area. Within 2 minutes I received a surface gold signal on my machine…looked down…there it was! The diamond engagement ring! I bent down picked it up…searched with my eyes for the band. No luck. Grabbed my machine and 6 inches from where I found the diamond ring I got another surface gold signal. After pushing the deep grass away….there it was…the band! How happy I am to come through for this very nice couple!
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.
Alena called and left a message that she lost her necklace in the sand on LBI, and wondered if I would be able to help find it. After going over some of the details we arranged to meet on the dune walkover. While walking down to the spot she refreshed my memory on a few details and I began to search in the area she had marked out earlier. That spot came up empty so we moved south and did and area right next to the original spot, and no luck there either. Another friend had just arrived and was point to the sand, showing her she buggy wheels heading north just a few feet from her original location. With that said I made 2 paths and found the necklace about 5” down in the soft sugar sand. The key to successful recoveries is getting back to the correct location many hours or even days later. 
