Third Time Lucky? Lost Wedding Band Found. Perth, Western Australia.
Bodan had been playing with his son in the water when he lost his wedding band at a remote stretch of beach which required a 4wd to access. As usual with water searches I explained to Bodan the ‘need for speed’ and organised a search the same day despite the conditions looking marginal at best.
Bodan’s GPS mark was a great idea and significantly increased our chances!
I met Bodan at his house where we transfered my equipment including my SCUBA gear into his 4wd and set off through the sand dunes north of his house. Unfortunately we had no joy as the swell was just a tad big and I was having real trouble keeping my feet on the bottom and with the larger waves I was swimming! The wave zone is one of the hardest areas to detect at any beach as it can be just a bit rough and or deep to work by wading and is too surgy and low visibility let alone dangerous to dive.
Second time lucky? The following day we repeated the exercise but things were against us once again. A comedy of errors ensued and ended the day with my detector becoming waterlogged! Not good, not good at all as I don’t currently have a backup underwater detector and besides I have become rather attached to “Shupriah” my detector as she has found me a small fortune in jewellery over the years and I shuddered to think I may have killed her!
Third time lucky? I must admit the chances of finding a ring lost in the wave zone in deep, soft and constantly moving sand after 6 days are deminishing rapidly. A number of days had passed with rough ocean conditions at the site which was only good for one reason, it would allow me time to try and revive “Shupriah”.
Bodan’s Gold Wedding Band
After completely stripping, washing, drying, drying and more drying, rebuilding and finally testing my “baby” I found that not only did she work but the threshold seemed more stable than ever! Great news and just in time for the much better weather conditions that had arrived. I rang Bodan and told him the good news and organised with him to have one more go at finding his ring.
This time I was able to work the loss area methodically and after 15 mins and a couple of heart starters I suddenly got that rising warmth of recognition upon hearing the soft, full sound of a gold ring come from my headphones and after a couple of attempts with the scoop found what we were looking for, Bodans Gold wedding band glowing in the bottom of my scoop. I simply yelled ” you wont believe it..” Bodan ran into the water and as he neared me I picked the ring up and passed it to him as I said “and bobs your uncle!” Bodan was exstatic and so was I just quietly.
Dylan and Bodan are most happy about the result!
Well not that quietly actually. I started with “and bob’s your uncle” and then given the remote location we yelled and hoorayed for a fair while before packing up and returning to North Mullaloo, mission achieved.
On our way back Bodan confided to me that he had pretty much given up hope of ever seeing his wedding ring again so it was extra special after all the up’s and downs of this search to reunite him with it and to see firsthand what it really meant to him to have it back.
All the best Bodan and cheers..