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Lost Wedding Ring Found in Surf Two Days Later

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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Two days ago, Scott had been fishing from a remote beach in Doubtless bay. While packing up, he noticed he had lost his white gold wedding ring during the day.

Thinking he had lost the ring while gutting and cleaning the catch in the water, he spent some time looking for it. With light failing and the propensity for rings to sink quickly in mobile sands, he was unable to locate his lost ring.

Fortunately, he had the presence of mind to tie a small orange fishing float to some grass at the edge of the dunes…and contacting an experienced Ringfinder as soon as possible meant that the chances of recovering it were as good as they get.
So, a little after 4am this morning, I pulled out of the driveway and started the 2hr drive north to meet Scott at 6.

Given the remote location, it was likely we would only get one shot at this and I wanted to maximise the lower half of the tide in case it became a protracted search.
Big thanks do have to go to Scott for making the effort to meet me on site at ‘daft o clock’, it is so invaluable having the ring owner present at searches to discuss the circumstances of loss.

Our little convoy bounced up the rough road up onto “Puwheke” – not an insignificant hill on the Karikari peninsula, and a prominant landmark visible from many kilometres in all directions.
Once parked up, Scott pointed far into the distance…distance being the key word! The route we would have to take around the hill and down to the beach looked like one of those that somehow always feels like it’s uphill in both directions with gorse, steep slopes and wet, slippery rank grass growth.

The beach itself was very pleasant though, the sort of sand you see on deserted tropical islands – nice flat hardpacked white quartz sand (The quartz crystals actually ‘squeak’ with the friction if you scuff your foot in the dry sand).

One and a half kilometres from the cars, we arrived at where he had lost his ring. A small dayglo fishing float glowing orange in the grass.
While I got setup, Scott marked out some boundaries and I made a start in the dry fluffy sand. At least, in the middle of nowhere there was no trash or background chatter to mask any signals. A rare luxury with recoveries.

The first search line went straight down the beach and out into the shallows. Unsure how long I’d be searching, I was trying to stay dry at this stage of the exercise, the ocean waters not yet warmed from summer.
I turned and started the return line back to the beach. Three paces – and I got a clean tone, the sound was either that of a deep lead fishing weight, or a relatively shallow gold ring. I knew which it would be! Time to dig.

The white sand easily flowed out of the scoop, leaving Scotts ring nestled in the corner.

The ring safely back on Scott’s finger, we started the long walk back to the cars.

Uphill all the way…

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Ring lost swimming at Taupo Bay. Found!

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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I occasionally get calls from people that I have previously recovered lost rings for, usually along the lines of, “I’ve done it again…”, or, “A friend/neighbour has lost their…”
Krista phoned me to say that a guest had been swimming at Taupo Bay and had lost his Gucci ring in almost exactly the same spot that I had recovered her own treasured heirloom ring at the start of this year.

It was late afternoon and the light would soon be fading, however the tide was falling so I had to try and catch the first low tide that night.
I arrived at Taupo Bay and was relieved to see that this popular surf beach had virtually no break today – I knew the area of loss would be exposed at low tide, however that wouldn’t be until about 10pm so I waded out and made a start.
The water hadn’t warmed to summer temperatures yet, but was definitely warm enough that the wetsuit wasn’t needed. A very strong cross current was feeding a rip nearby and sand was being visibly moved along the beach and at times sucked from under my feet. One of the reasons that water recoveries have to be carried out as soon as possible.

As I worked the search patterns Hayden, the `lossee`, and Krista settled in to watch the worlds most boring spectator sport.
The high probability area yielded nothing and as both tide and night fell, I started to expand the search out to 20m…30m… back across the area they had been swimming.
Several hours and multiple overlapping grid patterns later, I was convinced it wasn’t where it was supposed to be (they almost never are).
The others had long since left me to it so I texted to advise a no-find… So far.

On the drive home, I replayed the search over and over in my mind. Re-analysing the circumstances of loss against the fact that the ring was not located despite a near 100% probability of detection over the entire swimming area.
Hayden said he had been sweeping his hand through the water, and he had felt it come off.
The ring had to have been airborne, unseen by Hayden – hidden among the water spray/droplets.
Stated to be ‘silver’, I have found that this can mean it just looks silver and can be anything from platinum, white gold, or titanium. All with very different densities and responses. As an example, if you had two rings in your hand, white gold and titanium, and threw them, the gold would travel much, much further than the titanium due to the greater mass.

How far would a ring go? The original search area had discounted the lighter titanium.

Back on the road early next morning for the hour drive to Taupo Bay again in order to catch the next tide. When I don’t find a ring it becomes a personal challenge. It’s partially this tenacity which enables me to find rings which others have tried for and given up, or missed, due to inexperience or unsuitable detectors.

I had the luxury of daylight and a large tide window this time.

Some time was spent painstakingly eliminating several dozen unlikely but must-be-confirmed signals in amongst a buried jumble of fragments of reinforced concrete and other ‘hot’ rocks with high metal content under the sand. All metal targets were proven to be trash.
Then I moved onto a wider area search based on a couple of underarm throws of my test rings – in the opposite direction to where they had been swimming.
30 minutes later I got a very clear silver tone – The scoop went in, and from 30cm under the sand on the edge of yesterdays rip current emerged Hayden’s lost sterling silver ring.

I love sending texts that simply say, “FOUND!” – They’re usually followed immediately after by my phone ringing with an excited and unbelieving voice at the other end 🙂

 

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Lost Wedding Ring Found at Paihia

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
Contact:

Ring Finder – Ring Recovery Specialist…Lost ring? Lost necklace? Lost keys?… Metal Detector Service – Call ASAP 021 401626

Having the presence of mind to accurately fix your location, and rapidly contact a dedicated ring finder can make the world of difference when you have lost a ring or other piece of sentimental jewellery.

Josh was enjoying his holiday, lounging in the warm summer shallows at a Paihia beach, when he decided to remove his white gold and diamond wedding ring from his finger to thread it onto his necklace for security.
Fate intervened and the ring fell into the cloudy water.

He spent some time looking for it with a mask, although the zero visibility made it impossible to see.
That was when his wife contacted me.

Josh had made a mental note of a couple of items on shore that lined up, as well as an accurate depth and distance from the beach. It was high tide, but rather than wait for the next low tide the following day, the tight start point encouraged me to make the attempt before the evening light faded.

I waded out, counting my paces and gauging the depth as described by Josh, until I was in the general area. Josh directed me a little further to one side where he felt the ring would be and I started to grid.

Just after I turned to start the second run, I got a clean tone in the headphones – the audio too ‘bright and smooth’ to be litter.

The scoop went in, I checked the hole was clear and shook the sediments out of the scoop. The sand flowed away revealing the lost ring.

One of my fastest recoveries yet – thanks must go to Josh for providing an excellent start point and contacting a Ring Finder ASAP.

 

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Heirloom Signet Ring lost at Taupo Bay – Huge potential area, Found by Experienced Ring Finder

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
Contact:
Ring Finder – Ring Recovery Specialist…Lost ring? Lost necklace? Lost keys?… Metal Detector Service – Call ASAP 021 401626
Got a message from Krista
” Lost my ring at Taupo Bay today”.
After delving deeper, it transpired she might have lost her treasured heirloom rose gold ring at one of several locations: Washing the car, washing the dog, Potting/manuring some plants, swimming with the dog at one end of Taupo Bay, or when a boogie board was taken from her at the other end… HUGE potential area and with no start point. This is where experience takes precedence over ‘brute force’ (eg trying to cover every square centimeter). I met Krista  at her home, quickly eliminating the car/dog washing areas and the freshly manured garden plants as I waited for her to get ready to head down to the beach, although I already had a hunch where the lost ring would be found… I then followed her to the beach.
There were two locations of interest here, where she went into the water with her dog, and where a boogie board was taken off her. I chose to clear the latter first as it was at highest risk of being picked up by a casual holidaying metal detectorist as it was in the dry sand zone above the high tide mark and this time of year, coils are prevalent…
I cleared the highest probability area of the dry sand and with the tide about to turn shifted my focus to where she had taken the dog into the sea. I could return to complete the dry sand with a high intensity search if necessary.
At the swim spot at the other end of the bay, I asked Krista to retrace her movements and interactions from when she parked the truck. I mentally marked out the highest probability area on the sands as she retold her activities that afternoon and I settled in for a long search into the evening… I typically allow a minimum of four hours which, from experience, is sufficient to recover 90% of items. If the item is at a high risk of being lost to other detectorists, casual passers-by or a dynamic environment, eg surf, I often extend the hours to try and secure the lost item in the initial search phase.
After several circuits of the search pattern, I hit a nice solid tone at the waters edge – 3 inches under the surface lay her heirloom signet ring. It was outside the area she thought it would be [Trust No-one, Assume Nothing, Check everything] but the important thing was – It had been found.
I held it up and started to walk back towards her, a big grin on my face, a grin matched only by hers once she realised it was actually her lost ring and not someones elses.
All done, I packed up and headed home to get ready for my day job.
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Lost Silver Ring in Tauranga Bay Sand Dune – Found by the Ring Finders!

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
Contact:
Ring Finder – Ring Recovery Specialist…Lost ring? Lost necklace? Lost keys?… Metal Detector Service – Call ASAP 021 401626
First recovery for 2022.
Andy was enjoying New Years Eve on the beach at Tauranga Bay near Whangaroa Harbour, and as he kicked back to make himself comfortable in the loose sand of the dunes, he felt his jandals slip off his feet. Over the hours, they got progressively buried in the steep and mobile dry sand dune.
But this isn’t a story of a jandal recovery.
In the pitch black, as he sifted through the sand looking for his now buried jandals, he felt his precious silver ring slip off and vanish into the sand.
He gave me a call today just as I was getting prepped to leave for another lost ring in the sea at Cable Bay an hour further north.
I made an earlier start and detoured out to Tauranga Bay en route.
Searching the area was a matter of trying to maintain tight control of the coil in a controlled slide down the dune, followed by a hard three steps up- slide two back, slog up to the top again. Great exercise in the midday summer sun…
I cleared the initially indicated area, and as Andy wasn’t exactly sure where he had been, I started to open up the search pattern – keeping a half eye on the time as I had to catch low tide up in Doubtless Bay for the other lost ring recovery. If necessary I could return to this one, but time and tide waits for no-one.
Halfway down the dune, about 6 or 7 metres from where Andy thought he had been, I picked up a bright silver tone.
The scoop went in, the dry sand flowed out through the holes like water leaving a lovely bark-textured silver ring behind.
Holding it up to Andy, it was met with a huge grin!
Then into the car, and off to Doubtless Bay for recovery number two… leaving Andy to continue to look for his jandals buried in the sand at the new location where I had found the ring
.
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Trying to Find a Lost Ring led to yet Another Loss! – Time to Call Ringfinders!

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
Contact:
Ring Finder – Ring Recovery Specialist…Lost ring? Lost necklace? Lost keys?… Metal Detector Service – Call ASAP 021 401626
Marlene had been looking for her daughters wedding ring, lost at Paihia beach at Christmas. She very sheepishly described over the phone how she had tried to locate it yesterday by dropping her own wedding ring into the dry sand, so she could get an idea of what she was looking for…
The inevitable happened.
Three hours and a large pile of relocated sand later, it dawned on her that maybe she needed to outsource the job to a specialist to get her ring back!
I arrived on site and Marlene was waiting for me, leading me straight to the first priority – her own lost ring.
It was an impressive mound of sand she had moved, and I got the target straight away, deep inside the bottom of the heap, probably one of the first frantic handfuls.
That problem sorted, I then set out for her daughters ring – unfortunately with the very short grass, likely mown a few times since, and many thousands of eyes that would have passed the small area over the last three months of summer, her daughters lost ring was no longer there.
Apparently her daughter lost two rings – one of which was later found and reunited with her when an honest gentleman accidentally knelt on it, and handed it in to Police Lost Property.
Regrettably, he was not aware there were two rings there at the time…
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iPhone se Found on Random Hunt at Matauri Bay – Traced and Returned

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
Contact:

Ring Finder – Ring Recovery Specialist…Lost ring? Lost necklace? Lost keys?… Metal Detector Service – Call ASAP 021 401626

Not all recoveries are planned, some are random exercises in detective work.
I was working Matauri Bay beach doing a casual hunt before work this morning, when I dug an iPhone SE. Usually phones are no more than fancy spirit levels when they come out of the tide but this one was a recent loss and showed potential to be able to at least allow the owner to salvage their photos and contacts.

I headed off to work a bit early in order to put the phone through intensive care, quick rinse in fresh water, dried it off and delicately picked the sand out of the charging port. Firing it up, it flickered to life, complained about flat battery and shut down. It lives! Hopefully I could now reunite the owner with their rather expensive phone.

While I charged it, I swapped the sim out into my phone to discover a couple of missed calls which occurred after loss and looked promising leads.

Dropped the sim back into the found phone and sent a text to both numbers from my one explaining the situation and asking if they had a name I could follow up…and waited.
On the off-chance it had been dropped by a camper at the adjacent holiday park, I phoned the office to enquire if anyone had lost a phone recently.
“Yes, a white iPhone”, “Well, I have found it!” – A cheer is heard in the background at the other end of the line. I arranged to drop it off after work.

It seems Nakita had dropped it a couple of days previously, the fact it had survived at least three tides was a testament to the quality of the phone as it had lain under the sand at about the half-tide mark spending quite a few hours underwater at each high tide.
A family member gratefully accepted it on behalf, and I headed home.

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Two Rings Lost at Tapuaetahi Beach – Found!

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
Contact:

Ring Finder – Ring Recovery Specialist…Lost ring? Lost necklace? Lost keys?… Metal Detector Service – Call ASAP 021 401626

It’s been a long, hot, and very dry summer – Perfect for beach-goers to relax on the sand, and lose their precious jewellery.

Marion contacted me after hearing about The Ringfinders, and explained how she had been holidaying as a guest at a private beach, notoriously difficult to access and requests from non-residents – Including Ringfinders on a recovery mission, were met with a negative answer.
Marion was also unable to regain access so I knew that I would have to call in some favours on this one in order to get through the electronic gate and be able to find her rings without coming back to find my car towed.
This is when I recalled a discussion with Tim last year after I found his ring at nearby Matauri Bay ( Story here). At the time, Tim had queried the likelihood of finding another ring with a 30 year headstart, lost in a rocky bay while surfing at the same private property. It wouldn’t have moved or been detected, but thirty years… and clefts and crevices would be needle in a haystack. The upside was he could gain access through his contacts, and I would spend some time looking for his ring first.
The duly appointed day arrived and as the gate slid open and I drove through, it felt like I was entering Hallowed ground. It was several kilometres to the bay, surrounded by the residents houses. Fully expecting to be challenged I was surprised to be waved at as I passed walkers and people tending their gardens. I casually waved back while working out a plan B in case I returned to find my car had been towed due to a breakdown in communication…
The bay where Tim lost his ring was a sea of basalt boulders, most weighing 40+ kg. Tim, his wife and I of us spent a full hour, each with pinpointers rummaging in and around, but short of a systematic stringline search taking some weeks, any recovery would have been pure dumb luck. We located the remains of a fishing reel and one fishing weight. Tim conceded his ring had a new home and at least we had spent a cumulative time of three hours on it.

We headed back to the main beach and as I got kitted up at the car, Tim and his wife took their chairs etc down the path onto the sand.
With my experience in Search and Rescue, I have developed a fondness for tracking humans, a skill which has served me well as a RingFinder.  It wasn’t surprising to see that Tim and his wife had set up their chairs in the primary area of interest. Humans can be so predictable in their unconscious decisions!
“You are kidding?” when I asked Tim to move a dozen metres to the right. I briefly explained behavioural profiling and how we, as a species, tend to follow the same instinctive actions. They took it in good humour as they moved their new basecamp.
A few minutes later, Marions’ first white gold ring appeared in the scoop – right where Tim and his wife had been sitting! Tims wife didn’t believe how fast it had been found and as they were admiring the ring, I started the spiral search and less than a metre away, the second emerged.

I texted Marion the good news and as I headed back to the car, a young lad passed me with his metal detector heading for the beach…

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Gold Earring Lost in Sand at Whangaroa, Found and Returned.

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
Contact:

Ring Finder – Ring Recovery Specialist…Lost ring? Lost necklace? Lost keys?… Metal Detector Service – Call ASAP 021 401626

I got a call late last night from Sophie, asking if I was able to find a lost gold earring in the sand.

She had been playing volleyball on the beach at Tauranga Bay near Whangaroa in the Far North of New Zealand, and at some stage in the rough and tumble the earring was lost into the sand. A fellow camper at the Tauranga Bay campsite had heard of or witnessed my successful recovery of a lost engagement ring there just a couple of days ago. It was a simple matter to track down The Ringfinders to save the day (well, night)

It was just about low tide when she phoned, dinner could wait but time and tide waits for no-one, it was 50km away and night searches in the water aren’t fun. I threw the water kit in the car and headed off.

They had left the net up so I could see where they had been playing, but the giveaway was the parallel lines and grubbing about of what looked like a group of people doing a shoulder to shoulder contact search through the sand. It was just on sunset when I started and worked the court area and the principle traffic area back towards the camp.  I became aware of an audience in the dark, comfortably seated and watching what must be the most boring spectator event ever!  However they were to disappointed as the only two targets found were a hair clip and a 10c piece.  Confident I had cleared the site, it was either deep or not in the indicated area.

After confirming clothing etc had been checked to make sure it hadn’t been caught up, I said I would return in the morning with a deeper coil.

Up at 4am to drive back to the beach. Aside from a few torches of bleary-eyed campers stumbling around the campsite it was just me and my detector.  I re-ran the original grid, picking up some deeper junk targets before widening the search area.   I dropped over the change in contour where the waves had lapped on last nights high tide and off to the outside of one corner of the original grid I picked up a quiet ‘double-thud’ of a circular object – but could be an old can pulltab down deep.

Yes, it was deep, nearly 30cm down, but it wasn’t a pulltab as my fingers closed on the familiar shape of a sand-filled ring in the dark. Verified in the headlamp, and Job Done!

I scratched a message to Sophie in the sand: “FOUND IT! Back at 4pm” and headed off to work.

Later that morning I got a TXT from Sophie who had seen the message and was overjoyed at the retrieval of her lost earring.  By 4pm, it was back in her hands (to be put safely away with the other one for the remainder of their holiday)

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New Engagement Ring Lost in Surf – Found and Returned, Tauranga Bay, NZ

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
Contact:
Ring Finder – Ring Recovery Specialist…Lost ring? Lost necklace? Lost keys?… Metal Detector Service – Call ASAP 021 401626
Every ring has a story. This particular story was nearly cut short after it had only just begun!
One day into her engagement, Alexis was enjoying the water at Tauranga Bay near Whangaroa in New Zealand when she got hit by a large wave. Once the excitement had subsided, she realised the sea had pinched her brand new engagement ring!
Fortunately others nearby recommended me and she called immediately, before the wave action could bury it too deep.
On arrival, it wasn’t hard to see where she was in the crowd by the shoal of snorkellers searching in the shallows. After a quick Q&A, I had a good idea of the search area and started the first run.
Quick contact from Alexis and careful noting of her location enabled me to recover and hand back her lost ring within a few minutes – to screams of relief and joy echoing around the beach.
Alexis turned to her fiance, “Are we still getting married?” 😆
And the ring added a chapter to its story.

 


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