Every call for help in finding a lost ring is just as important as the ones before it or the many coming after it. Each ring has its own story, whether it was passed down from a family member, something someone worked hard for to achieve, or the love of their life slipped it on their finger. Although, all of the rings are very important, once in a while you get the call for something very special that grabs at your heart strings. This was exactly the case for me on this call. Ron called me close to 11 pm on Thursday, June 30th clearly devastated that he had lost his father’s custom-made yellow gold Free Mason’s ring. He told me the ring was specially designed and made for his father by another Free Mason, who was both a friend and a jeweler. Ron’s father has since passed away and this special ring now belongs to Ron. I found out from Ron that he was wearing the ring while throwing a football in the ocean. My first question was if he was right or left-handed, he responded right-handed. My second question was which hand was the ring on. Again, his response was on his right hand. My next questions were what day, time, and how deep was he in the water. His response was that he lost it on Tuesday, around lunch time, and he was about thigh deep. During our text messages he changed the day to Monday. We exchanged other information and I could tell Ron was having a difficult time talking about losing the ring. I found out that he and his family was leaving the next morning. I closed our conversation by asking him to take pictures of the area and send them to me the next morning. After thinking about it, I texted him back and asked him if he could meet me on the beach the next morning at 9 am, he agreed. By meeting him, I could get a firsthand view without having to decipher some pictures.
The next morning, we met as scheduled and he pointed out the area. I don’t remember if it was during our texting the night before or he told me when we met that he actually lost it on Sunday, which was 5 days ago. As we’re talking about additional details, I asked him whether he was facing north or south when he was throwing the football and he responded he was facing east, meaning he was facing seaward. In my mind, I’m thinking this is going to be a tough, if not an impossible search. If he was facing seaward, throwing the ball with the same hand the ring was on and it was 5 days ago, it’s difficult to imagine where his ring ended up. But I love a good challenge, so I told him I’d be back around 2 pm to work the outgoing tide with low tide being at 3:48 pm.
As I’m loading up the car with my detector, the sky opened up and it started pouring rain. No problem, I’m going to get wet anyway, as long as there’s no lightening – I’m good. By the time I got to the beach and the search area, the rain had stopped. No rainbows, but I did get a report of a waterspout less than 5 miles up the beach. I swear, the Big Man upstairs was testing me that day! I started on the line Ron had given me earlier that morning. I started my grid line from the mid tide line and walked out to waist/chest deep water working my way to the south. I’m not sure how far south I went but I was sure I was outside of Ron’s area. I went back to my starting point and started working the grid search north. I did about 10 lines and got a solid hit on my White’s PI. The PI is a great machine, but it has no discrimination, nor does it show any target depth, it just signals there’s some sort of metal underneath the coil. I had already picked up a couple of pull tabs, a few bottle caps and 4 fishing weights, so I figured this was one more piece of junk. A couple of scoop and I had the target out of the hole. I took my foot and spread the sand out, I looked down and saw the Free Mason diamond symbol staring at me. Boom! I just stood there and stared; I couldn’t believe it. What a beautiful ring! I picked it up and walked back to the car to get my phone and take a couple of pictures. I sent a picture of me holding the ring and the ring sitting in the sand to Ron saying, “look familiar?” As I’m driving home, I called him and left a message when he didn’t answer saying “check your text messages and call me.” I figured he was still on the highway driving home. Within a few minutes he called me back and he was so excited he couldn’t talk. I wish I would have been able to hand his ring to him and see his expression, but I’m sure it was one of pure elation and surprise. I’ll get his ring in the mail Tuesday and wait for his picture to post this.
Ron – Thank you so much for trusting me to help find your lost treasure, I was so excited to find it for you. Best Wishes!!!
Jim
