Lost Ring Found at Navarre Beach
Alex, his wife Andy along with their two adorable children were vacationing for a few a days on Navarre Beach. Alex was careful to put his wedding ring in the beach bag before playing with the kids in the sand on Sunday. Some where in the outing his ring fell out of the bag maybe while removing something or perhaps the bag fell over. In the mean time the kids were having serious fun digging in the sand. Alex was an Army Vet whose last duty station was in Alaska, had since separated and now the family lived in Tennessee. So as you could imagine, the kids were absolutely loving the beach. Andy called me Monday morning to see if I would come recover Alex’s ring. I said I would and arrived about 10:30. Both Alex and Andy showed me the area they were at the day before, but maybe two thirds of the areas sand looked like the kids had dug holes filled some, made mounds and generally had a great time in the process. As I started my search they were still digging. After 30 minutes or so and digging several targets, a fish hook, a stainless bolt, a piece is iron, a couple of pop tops and a a hair pin, I got a encouraging signal but it indicated it was almost off the scale deep. I dug anyway. The first scoop came up empty, the second try I pushed the scoop as deep as it would go. As I shook the sand from the scoop I could hear something heavy shaking around. I smiled and that tipped Alex off that this target was a good one. I reached in and handed his wedding ring to him. Everyone was all smiles. As I like to say, no more worries and no regrets, time for the vacation to continue!
I just returned to my vehicle after water testing my detector at Pensacola Beach when I received a call from Suzanne. She and her family were on vacation at Orange Beach Alabama, it was high tide and surf was about 1 to 2 foot. Her daughter in law lost her beautiful wedding ring in waist to chest deep water somewhere about 40 or 50 yards from shore in a area about maybe 40 yards wide and asked if I would find it! I said I would do my best and I would be there in an hour. It was a large area and the surf made it very difficult to make sure every square foot was hunted. I ended up setting my scoop on every step so I could reposition if moved off track by the surf. The family had made friends with just about everyone on the beach so there was a good audience. Everyone was wishing me luck on my hunt and some didn’t think it was possible to find a little ring buried in sand underwater! It took me maybe two and a half hour to search the area with no luck. I went back to the family and together we reaccessed the area to search. Suzanne waded to the area and distance off shore she thought was the spot making a vertical line and her son stood on shore at the spot he thought was right and set the horizontal line. Between the two spots I started a search grid and overlapped by about ten feet in either direction as I slowly moved closer to shore a foot at a time. Suzanne stayed close while I was searching and we talked a bit. Suddenly I got a signal and called to her “this sounds like a good signal” and carefully set my scoop to prevent damage or a scratch to the ring. She was there before I could raise the scoop anticipating the wayward ring, anxiously waiting the sand to drain from scoop and suddenly a glint of gold, then she had it in her hand. She raised her arms with ring in hand and announced her daughter in law’s ring was recovered!!! The family and their many friend cheered. Everyone in the family was smiling and relieved, emergency over, no more worries. I was happy I was able to make everything right again, made my day!