Justin was photographing another couple on the beach for some wedding album shots, when a rogue wave blasted through and knocked him off his feet and pushed him onto some rocks. In trying to keep his feet and save his expensive camera gear, his wedding ring came off. Finding it in that soft sand they have at that beach was impossible without a metal detector. When I received the call, I was skeptical it could even be found, but, was more than willing to try. That is one of the worst beaches in our area to make a water recovery. It has a heavy surge, large shore break waves, steep drop off, and sand so soft and loose, that it’s almost like quicksand. He sent me a photo of the site of the loss. I arrived the next morning at 4:30am to take advantage of the minus tide. I had the photo on my phone to use so I could match up the area. Unfortunately, it was real foggy that morning and hard to tell the exact area in the dark and fog. I saw a couple of features that looked like a match and began my search. After over an hour of gridding, no ring. In fact, no good targets of any kind. Not surprising at that beach. Once it started to get light from the approaching dawn, I looked again at the photo and then realized that I wasn’t in the right area. I finally determined the correct spot and started a 2nd grid. Still no luck. a few pieces of scrap aluminum and that was it. Nothing more to do but give him the bad news. It was still pretty early, so, I decided to move down the beach to an area where I had good luck in the past. I headed about 200 feet south and started hunting for fun. I liked to hunt the cracks up on the rocks and cliff. stuff falls into them all the time. While up on a ledge checking some cracks I got a good signal in some loose sand. It was only a couple of inches deep, so, easy to make a recovery. What do you know, it was a ring that matched Justin’s description! His was a fairly common tungsten carbide, so, I wasn’t positive that it was his, but, I was hopeful. I got to looking and it was a long way from where he took this photo. After contacting him later, he told me that he was using a telescopic lens and that he was a lot further back from what it looked like in the photo! He wanted to come and look at it to be sure, but, I was pretty certain at that point. Sure enough it was a perfect fit. Glad I could help Justin.
