Little Egg Harbor NJ, Heirloom Ring lost in Lagoon, recovered by Edward Trapper, NJ Ring Finder
Kyle initially contacted another local ring finder about his wife’s rings, which had been dropped into a lagoon a day or two earlier. Since he wasn’t in the area, the call was referred to me. After speaking with Kyle, he explained that his wife had taken off her rings while in the water, right by the ladder, and as she was handing them up, they slipped out of her hand and sank into the lagoon.
Once I learned the location, I knew this recovery would be particularly challenging. The mud in that area of New Jersey is black, soft, and essentially bottomless. It’s critical to take proper precautions, as working in those conditions can be dangerous.
When I arrived, I got straight to work, carefully scanning the area with my metal detector to identify promising signals before digging into the thick, black, pudding-like mud. After about 30 minutes of searching, I successfully recovered one of the rings. I continued looking for another hour but couldn’t find the others.
Fortunately, the ring I found was the family heirloom—the one they were most eager to get back. The black mud can be incredibly tricky, as items tend to sink quickly, and I suspect that’s what happened to the remaining rings. Nonetheless, they were relieved to have recovered the most sentimental piece.
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Ally reached out to me, as a last-chance effort, in trying to get her precious engagement ring back, that unfortunately was dropped in the bay, on a nice Jersey Shore summer afternoon. She was very concerned there was no hope, as it had already been in the water for close to a week. I asked why she waited so long to call me, and her reply was “another local ring finder looked and had no luck”. I usually wont make it a practice to follow up behind another ring finder, but Ally hadn’t heard any more from him about his follow-up search, and was desperate at this point. After quite a long conversation, I decided Ally really needed me, and agreed to do the recovery. She sent me all the pertinent information, and I assured her I would go at the first possible brake in the, wind, and weather. The tides would also have to coincide with the search day. Our first conversation was 11 PM the day before, when I told her I would check in with her next morning. The following morning at 5 AM, as I was getting ready for work, I looked the weather over real good, and guess what, ” today is the day”. I text Ally and told her I was going for it today before low tide, she was thrilled with the timely updates, which she was not used to. I suited up with all my gear, and proceeded with the 1/3 mile walk in the water, just to get to the location it was lost. Once I was set up, I started to do a tight grid search, clearing over 20 signals, all of which had potential, to ensure her ring wasn’t missed by an overpowering signal. It really seemed like to many targets for an area that was supposedly searched, just 6 days prior, even though this is a huge boaters party area. And no they were not recent drops, as they were all down at least 4″ plus. I was super confident of my location, so I kept plugging along and after about 45 minutes my Metal Detector screamed out a low consistent tone, that almost immediately had Ally’s ring written all over it. While clearing the sand from my scoop, I could feel the tink, tink, tink of her ring, but at first glance, I didn’t see it hiding under the shells. But I knew that tink was NOT a shell, and gave the scoop a little wiggle, and there it was, WOW, was this a heart testing moment, seeing the diamonds sparkling back at me. My gut was right, I was in the right spot, and NJ Ring Finder just made someone’s last chance hopes a true reality. !!!!
It was a beautiful day at the Jersey Shore, so why not take your dog to the beach??? After all, they love the water just as much as humans. And thats exactly what Lucy did that morning after she woke up. It was quite a few hours later that Lucy had a horrible mishap that you would wish on nobody !!!! She was throwing her dogs toy straight out into the water, when he beautiful Carter Trinity Rings flew off he finger. At that point she went into panic mode as many do, and began franticly searching without any luck. After about an hour she reached out to me. After getting all the details we had to act quickly, as the tide was coming in fast, do to the full moon. Once I arrived, she showed me the spot she believed the rings flew off, and I quickly got to work. I went out deep to start, knowing it would be over my head shortly. Having no luck, I worked 50′ paths back in to about knee deep water. Knowing time was running out, I went back out to about waist deep water. The greenhead fly’s were really having their feast on my upper body, so patients were growing very short. Making short sweeps, from waist to knee deep water, to expand my search area, to see if possibly they flew off to the side a bit. After about 25′ more feet to the south, BINGO !!!!! I got a fantastic hit, which I prayed was not a sinker or military debris, as this particular is littered with. After shaking out all the fine particles from my scoop, there, in the corner under a few shells, were Lucy’s rings. With a sigh of relief, I slowly walked out of the water, telling Lucy I was getting eaten alive. She looked very disappointed, figuring I was giving up, I told her to take a look into my scoop. Its at that very moment that makes doing this so so rewarding ! The emotions really tell a story of their own.
Its a beautiful afternoon in one of New Jerseys finest beach towns, Seaside Park. The oceans were calm, winds light and variable, which made for a perfect day of shell collecting. Dylan and his daughter set out to do just that. Unfortunately all the absolutely beautiful shells they had gathered together, just couldn’t make up for what had just happened. They were down at the very bottom of the tide line, by the drop off, picking up just one last shell, when Dylan decided to rinse off his hands and call it a day. At that very moment he watched his ring slip off his finger, and drop into the sand, just as a wave was rolling in. Even thought the ocean was as calm as we will experience here, Dylan had absolutely no luck over the next two days locating his beautiful wedding ring. When he called me and told me it had already been two days, and that it was just about dead low tide where his ring slipped off, I didn’t have a good feeling about the recovery, at that moment. What he did have in his favor was the fact that it had been dead calm, and was going to continue that way for the next few days. I told Dylan I would be on the beach for the next low tide which was day 3 of his ring being lost on the bottom of the ocean. I was out at 4 AM scouring every inch of the location he had marked with his phone in google maps, with not even one signal. Unfortunately I had prior obligations the next 2 days and would not be able to return until the following morning low tide. It was 5 AM or so, and here I am wondering around in the ocean again, but this time in about thigh deep water my machine sounds off a perfect low tone that you can tell almost in an instant was Dylan’s ring. I missed it in the first scoop, then BINGO !!!! I had his ring after 6 full days in the ocean. Believe me friends, this situation almost never exists in the state of NJ, but luckily for him it did that week. I messaged him asking for a detailed description, because all we had mentioned was white gold in our other conversations. I was pretty positive this was his ring, and the pictures confirmed that. I texted him pics and he was in total shock. We agreed to meet a few hours later for the monumental return.
Kerry called during the day and left a message wondering if I would be able to help find his lost wedding ring on the beach in Wildwood NJ. I called him right back to go over some of the details about how he lost his ring. Kerry explained he was on the beach with his family, playing with the dogs, and when he looked at his hand he noticed his wedding ring missing. He was very detail oriented, recalling every move leading up to the beach episode. After going over every detail of the day, he distinctly remembered having it on at dinner, and was almost positive it came off while playing with the dogs on the beach. Well, then he mentioned that he had searched the entire area with a metal detector and had no luck. They had also walked back and fourth the entire distance many times. If you know this beach it’s quite a vast area, kinda like walking to another zip code or two. I hope that brought things into perspective a bit. It was getting dark so they threw in the towel for the day, and returned the next morning with rakes to rake the entire area with hopes the ring would pop up. With no luck, it was time for them to pack up and head back home. I asked him to mark the exact location on his cell phone, with the GPS feature on Google Maps, and send it to me with a picture of his ring, and I would head right there after work. I parked right by the boardwalk, grabbed my gear and headed out to the beach. I opened the location he sent and somehow it was right where I was standing on the beach just beyond the boardwalk. I figured I would follow the dog tracks, but with the wind blowing about 30 knots they were getting covered by the drifting sand. Kerry had mentioned that he was straight out, and roughly 50′ from the high tide line, which was a good thing. Once I got close to the water I was able to see the area they had been raking earlier that morning, without that mark I highly doubt I would have been able to find the spot. Another huge thing in their favor was that the area was flat wet sand from from the prior high tide, and even though it had been raked quite a bit, didn’t blow flat, with the screaming south east wind. I turned on my machine, made one path around the perimeter, and on my return path Bingo!!! My machine gave off the sweet sound of success. A nice solid low tone, which I knew immediately was Kerry’s ring. Once back at my truck, I called his relatives phone hoping they were in town, but they were not. Then I called Kerry with the good news, and arranged to meet him at a later date to return his ring. another great recovery in the books.
I got a text one evening from my old boss, he was asking it if still do recoveries. He explained that he was on the beach and a guy was digging around in the sand looking for something. He couldn’t help but ask what he was doing, and he said looking for my wedding ring. With that he told them about my and exchanged my information. Alex called a few minutes later and we went over what happened. He had decided to jump into the ocean for a swim, but prior to doing so, placed his ring and other stuff he was holding into his pants pocket. I had to head right there due to the fact that beach is heavy detected, and the ring might not last overnight. We walked right out to the surf as the tide was coming on rather quickly. Alex had some things marking the area, and i quickly started searching down low on the hill. He was pretty sure his stuff was up higher but I just wanted to make sure before the water got too far up. I completely covered the area we thought the ring would be, without any sign of the ring. Alex and his wife Carlie were on vacation and has to leave, as some friends were up at the restaurant waiting for them. I wasn’t given up just yet, and continued to search the path they had taken back to the dune walkway. With the very deep/soft white powdery sand the Jersey beaches have, it was no to easy seeing right where they had walked. After walking half way back, I turned around and did another sweep back to the water with no luck again. Spreading out even further to the north I located his ring about 150’ from the high tide line. I quickly called him, hoping to catch them before they left the area, which I did. We met on the boardwalk where I handed his ring back, which made the end of his vacation fantastic.
Kate reached out to me wanting to know if it was possible to locate her engagement that slipped off her finger during the day somewhere at the beach. It was late in the evening, and after determining that it was close to high tide when it most likely came off, it would be best to wait until the early morning low tide. We arranged to meet early the next morning at the dune walkover. As we were heading to the location I had asked her to mark in google maps we talked about the main things she could remember leading up the the ring disappearing. Once we got to the spot, she showed me some pictures she had, before and after the ring went missing. Something didn’t look just right, but I figured I would check the area that was marked. After coming up empty handed I asked her to see the pics again, it was then I knew that was not quit the right location. I adjusted the location about 40′ to the north, and things looked just right, including the piles of seaweed that had pushed high up on the hill the prior day when the pics were taken. Kate confirmed after looking at the pics that this was absolutely the right location. Combined with the rough surf, was the fact that she was boogie boarding, and that is never a good thing when doing a recovery. Kate did remember one wave that knocked her down, where she lost the board, and that was luckily close to the beach in waist deep water. I decided to hit that area real quick, and while Kate was in about knee deep water looking, I got a signal that made my eyes open wide. With the waves crashing right where I was, I took extra time to zero in on the exact spot, and hoped to grab it on the first scoop. Sure enough I had it on the first try, BINGO, it was her absolutely stunning ring!!!!! Kate had no idea what had just taken place just a few feet behind her, as I scooted up the hill , past the waves to get a better look and clean it off. At that moment I decided to make a video to capture her response, which you will see I’m not very good at. (Will be posted soon) Her reaction was something that makes this profession SO SO rewarding that no words could ever explain.