Sewer Clean Out, Surf City, LBI, recovered by Edward Trapper, NJ Ring Finder
What a wonderful weekend it was going to be, fantastic weather, great company, car is all unloaded, and just sitting on the outside on the deck, having a cold drink, enjoying the ocean breeze, when a voice from inside hollers, “we have a problem” !!!! Linda went inside to see what I might be, and it was most peoples nightmare, a clogged toilet. One would think this is an easy fix, but unfortunately it was not. After 2 days of trying to plunge the clog, it was now backing up in the downstairs laundry slop sink. A local plumber on LBI come out to assess the situation, unfortunately without locating the outside cleanout he was not able to finish the job. She called the guy he recommended who handles much lager jobs, and would be equipped with a 200′ snake. Once again, without the location of the outside cleanout he was not able to do anything either. That’s where I come into play. After 2 days, Linda called me wondering if I was able to locate a sewer cleanout. My concern was, if it was all plastic my equipment would not be helpful. After a short conversation, I headed out to try and help. After looking the entire plumbing situation over, I received many possible signals, in the area the cleanout should be. After quite a bit of digging, the cleanout was located, and now Linda could have the plumber return to snake out the entire line. This was a “stinky” situation to start of the weekend, but ended up on a positive note.
Eileen called just as I had gotten out of the dentists office, wondering if it would be possible to come and search for her I-Phone that slid off the roof of a car, and landed somewhere alongside the roadway. She explained that she had put the phone on the roof of the car, and said goodbye to her company. Forgetting the phone was on the roof she went inside, and her company drove off. The following day she realized the phone was missing, and realized what had happened. She contacted her friend hoping he had picked it up prior to leaving the night before, which wasn’t the case. They had finally decided it must have slid off the car roof and landed somewhere on the side of the road. Using the find my phone app. they found the last known location of the phone before it died, where they searched for 4 days without any luck. That was when she decided to call in a professional recovery expert. We made arrangements to meet on the side of the roadway that afternoon. It was there Eileen went into more detail about HOW important this phone was, as nothing was backed up to the cloud, including over 6000 pictures, that were absolutely unreplaceable. This area was right in front of a big housing complex, that had manicured grounds with fences and pristine walking paths. I was praying it didn’t fall off there as the grass cutters had recently cut the lawn, and it would have shredded it to bits, had they ran it over. I instructed Eileen to go into the management office, explain what happened, and ask if possibly the phone was turned in. While she was in doing that I covered the entire area on both sides of the road, and all the landscape, with no luck, just as I had figured. Standing back, looking in the opposite direction, the curve in the road looked ever so inviting of an area, for a phone to slide off the roof. I walked back covering everything from the road in about 10′ with no luck. Then I turned around and continued back along the tall weeds, and wood line. Right along the weeds, just inside of where the mowers cut, I received the loudest broken signal from my metal detector, that I know ever to familiar, would be her cell phone. Sure enough BINGO!!!! I had her phone. I decided to record the moment when I returned her it, and needless to say, what a heart filled experience it was, reuniting Eileen with over 6000 photos, which covered many years of her life prior, to this almost tragic mishap.
Jennifer called to inquire about the possibility of recovering her wedding and engagement ring, that accidently flew off her finger into the water, at the boat dock. As usual I questioned her about exactly what had happened, as well as any information she might know about the water depth, clarity, current, etc. She explained that she had opened the state room door, stepped out onto the finger dock, and was brushing some crumbs off one of the boat cushions, when both rings flew right off her finger, into the dark water below. Jennifer was adamant this was exactly what happened, and confirmed both rings must be pretty much straight down, or possibly under the other boat, or under the finger pier. The water was a workable depth of around 5′ or so, depending on what end of the finger pier I was. Knowing how deep and dark the water was, I had to gather many items to ensure I had what was needed, to make this a successful recovery. Once on location at low tide, the water did average 5′, so that was a good thing. What wasn’t so good was how black and muddy the bottom was, as you can see the nasty black mud in the one picture. after clearing MANY targets, which is common in marina locations, I got a promising signal, that turned out to be Jennifer’s wedding ring. She was quite surprised I was able to find it with all the trash on the bottom. One would figure the other ring would be right near by, but after another 45 minutes, I had no luck. I really didn’t want to throw in the towel, but I was leaving for vacation early the following morning, and had to call it a day. Jennifer was extremely grateful, as I promised her I would return the first chance I had after I got home.
Gregg called and asked if I would be able to help him find his wedding ring he had lost on the dune walkover in Holgate NJ. We were having some unusual swarming mosquitos, and when he was heading over to the ocean they bombarded him when he was almost at the top. When he tried to swat them away, unfortunately his wedding ring flew off his hand and most likely landed up on the dunes somewhere. We arranged to meet the next afternoon, knowing his ring would be safe in that location. I had read on one of the local Facebook pages how bad they were after days of heavy rain, but never experienced anything quite this like this. I pulled up in the driveway, and no sooner had my door opened, I would venture to say, there were 20 or more in my truck. With that said, out came the sweatshirt and bug spray. I really hate mosquitos. Greg and I went over again exactly what had happened, as we walked quickly to the spot he had marked with some little sticks and stuff. I turned on my machine, put on the headphones, and for whatever reason it would not quiet down. I asked him to stand facing exactly the way he was, and to demonstrate the swatting motion he used when the ring went flying. It looked like it probably could have flown up in the dune grass, but with the motion he showed me, my hunch was it went straight down. So, as these nuisance bugs are like a cloud around us, I moved back to where I turned on the machine, which was also the spot he was when the ring came off. And now I know why the machine was so noisy!!!!! Bingo!!!! It was sitting right on top of his ring. The more detective work one can do the better. The entire hunt only lasted about 10 minutes at best. Making memories again on LBI.
Amanda sent me a text later in the evening, asking about my services. Amanda and her husband Dave were at the beach, where she had removed her NJ State Trooper medallion necklace and placed it in the beach bag for safe keeping. She was extremely heartbroken, as she wore this every single day for over 20 plus years. After they returned home it was missing, so they backtracked every step with no luck. They also raked the entire area of the beach where they had set up their chairs and towels for the day. The only possible thing that could have happened was it came out during the day when Dave removed the car keys, and mistakenly fell into the sand. Amanda didn’t want me to come out late at night, but no way would I leave the necklace sit in the sand over night, and possibly disappear with the tide, or risk it being found by an suspecting beach comber. I met Dave at the beach within 30 min. and had Amanda’s necklace in the scoop just a short while later. Dave was in total disbelief I found it so fast, especially after they had done an extensive search prior to my arrival.
