Lost class ring, Clemson South Carolina- found
I was contacted by a gentleman who had recently graduated from a college in the upstate. The gentleman advised he was at a dock swimming and upon exiting the water his ring slipped off. Gathering more information about the search it sounded like a very good possibility of recovery, so I committed to the dive.
I met the client at the dock, geared up, jumped in and found this visibility to be approximately 5 feet total, the depth to be 15 feet with a very silty bottom. I started hunting with my metal detector and with this being a public dock there were tremendous amounts of metal trash. What made the hunt more difficult was to the fact that as soon as I moved the silt on the bottom- trying to find the metal object- my visibility went to zero and stayed that way. I very meticulously , “blindly” searched for approximate one hour and 45 minutes with the detector, picking up every metal object, feeling it in my hands and placing the trash in my collection bag to get it out of the search area.
At the 1:45 hour mark I surfaced and spoke with the client about what he wanted to do. I was down to 700 psi in my tank and 15 minutes left of a contracted two hour timeframe. We decided to give it one more shot…. I submerged, landed on the bottom, my metal detector signaled, I picked up the object and felt it…. Lo-and-Behold; there was the ring!! I surfaced, gave the client the ring and he was overjoyed!
Its always very satisfying being able to return a lost item to someone, especially working in conditions that are extremely difficult to search.
