Nicole’s Story
My son and I decided to take a spontaneous and quick (Thurs-Sun) road trip, just the 2 of us, to Southern California from the SF Bay Area. The plan was to spend 2 days at Disneyland and then make a stop in Manhattan Beach to see family on Sunday. Before noon on Saturday(day #2 at Disney), we were both wanting to go to the beach. So, we said goodbye to Mickey and headed for Newport. After a relaxing Saturday afternoon filled with a picnic lunch, boogey boarding, playing catch (lacrosse & baseball), we headed back to our hotel in Anaheim. It was there that I realized I did not have my wedding ring on my finger. I vaguely remember taking it off to apply sunscreen like I so often do, surely I’d remember to put it back on. Oops! So after shuffling through the multiple bags I had with me that day and stripping down the car I realized I must’ve lost it at the beach. Gone forever, or so I thought. Monday, back home in the Bay Area, I had a hairbrain idea to go online and check out Orange County Craigslist. On it, I posted an ad in the “lost & found” section stating: “Platinum Wedding Band lost at Newport Beach on Saturday.” Talk about a shot in the dark, a hail Mary! I never thought anything would come of it and had already begun looking online at new wedding bands but on Monday night, I had an e-mail from Stan with theringfinders.com asking me for more detail. I was able to narrow it down for him, I knew what block I parked in and about how far down the beach we were. I still thought it would be like finding a needle in a haystack. It’s
a BIG beach! Tuesday morning (3 days after losing my ring at the beach!) at 7:30am I got an email saying simply “I found your ring. Call me.” I called him right away. He read me the inscription, sure enough it was my ring! My ring was back on my finger on Thursday. I am still in shock. My husband Patrick and I have been married 13 years this summer, lucky #13! Stan is the MAN! Thank you for finding my ring!
My Story starts: April 21, 2014
Monday night as I was checking Craig’s List when I saw Nicole’s post. She had posted it just a few hours before I read it. Her Post read: Lost Platinum Wedding Ring .. Newport Beach: ” I was at Newport Beach on Saturday and I lost my platinum wedding band (women’s). It has an inscription inside. I was between 26th St. and 27th St.” First, I was concerned that others may read this and go on their personal treasure hunt. Second, this area of the beach is pounded by many other detectorists new to the hobby. ( finders keepers ). Third, and most important is this beach is very well maintained. The beach cleaning machines are very efficient and they will get items as small as dimes including rings. I sent an email to Nicole asking for more details, but did not read her reply till after I found the ring. I could not sleep well, thinking about getting to the search area before the machines or other detectorist might get the ring. I could have gone to the beach at 10pm, but I thought 5am would work out better. That would let me find out the new summer schedule for beach cleaning and after the search I could do some pleasure detecting.. I began to grid search parallel to the beach starting at the towel line from 26th St. to 27th St..It was not looking good. The beach was super clean and I could see the beach cleaning machines in the distance. I was able to cover about 4 feet with each swing of the detector. After about 12 passes which took about two hours and I was more than 50feet from the towl line. I started to get some coins and other metallic trash. Then up popped Nicole’s ring. I emailed her then talked to her on the phone, she was so excited on the other end of the phone I could not believe it. Later that day I mailed her ring to her in the San Francisco Bay Area, but I did not rest easy till I received her email that it made it safe her home and the ring was back on her finger.. TheRingFinders works and it works real well “TELL A FRIEND”
Here Comes the beach sifting machines
There goes the Beach Sifter… I call it the Ring Eater
