Russell Tag | The Ring Finders

Te Haumi, Paihia – Engagement Ring Found

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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This recovery was hard graft.

Larissa got in touch after losing her diamond engagement ring while walking with her partner and the dog on the Te Haumi mudflats. She remembered having it after leaving the car, but noticed it was missing on their return.

The challenge: They had covered an expansive area with several key ‘ring loss’ factors, including pulling her jandal(flip-flop) out of a deep hole of ooze, throwing seaweed for the dog, and all on top of the distance they had walked.

I met Larissa and her partner to go over the scenario. Unfortunately, the tides were wrong on the day, so we couldn’t positively identify any specific areas. It would come down to systematically covering the area, grinding away.

Over the next few weeks, I repeatedly made the journey to Paihia to continue and extend the search. Given the area, it was very unlikely someone had randomly picked it up—I just needed to get the metal detector coil over it. Easier said than done. It’s a game of inches – if the coil doesn’t pass over it, the ring may as well not be there.

Te Haumi is absolutely littered with corroded fragments of drink cans and general metal trash. I removed and binned a kilogram of rubbish in one search alone.

By utilizing drone survey mapping after each search, I was able to progressively exclude potential areas until only two options remained:
a) It had been lost where Larissa either pulled her jandal out of the muddy hole, or
b) It wasn’t here at all (i.e. it was picked up, or her recollection was incorrect).

A) was by far the most likely, based on experience, so I focused on this area.

It was extremely hard going.
Probably in the top five of where I mentally wanted to give up. However, the statistical probability of a successful recovery was too great.
I was convinced the ring was here, I firmly believed the ring was here – I just needed to hear it.

Over the decades, the density of aluminium and similar rubbish meant that it had naturally concentrated in this area with all the loose small shells and mud. Each visit left yet another bag of metal rubbish in the bin. (I work on the principal that if you dig it, you’re now responsible for it).

I had to remove anything that could interfere with a potentially very deep signal of a fine gold ring at the bottom of a muddy hole surrounded by rubbish.

After over 40 hours spent searching on repeated visits, I was down to removing tiny aluminium rivet heads from the many boats that had grounded over the years. Every one had to be checked, as the ring could have been very deep and give a similar signal.

And then, after oh, so much rubbish, a deep signal—no longer masked by corroded beer can fragments, foil chocolate wrappers, and old pennies (and a lone mid-1800’s musket ball), it was a clean sound, a smooth sound.

Potentially the sound that my work could be over.

The signal was in unconsolidated sediments—soft mud. The sort of place you could inadvertently step into and lose your jandal…

Then, from 30cm down, Larissa’s gold and diamond engagement ring returned to the daylight.

Over 20,000m² covered, 46Hrs on the coil and roughly 2.7kg of rubbish removed.

End result: Another irreplaceable ring returned to its rightful finger.

And that’s what matters to me.

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Lost Ring on Lawn at Whangaruru, Found!

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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Three weeks ago, Howard threw some kitchen scraps out into the garden – but the bowl, and his sovereign ring, went with them.
After spending some time looking for it, he was considered hiring a metal detector and happened to mention it to a relation who works a gold claim overseas.
“Get someone who knows what they’re doing” was the advice given, and shortly afterwards, Howard phoned me.

I headed over to Whangaruru the next morning, Howard waving to me from the deck as I missed his driveway…

There were several potential locations which could have held the ring and made for a difficult search, including a series of deep postholes drilled for a deck extension, partially filled with water.
Then there was the tangled patch of Honeysuckle vines at the edge of some regenerating scrub and further over, the garden dropped away down a steep, overgrown bank.

I quickly cleared the easiest area of lawn (and the postholes), before setting up to search the undergrowth.
Experience told me where the likely arc and distance of the ring would be as I started to move into the scrub.

Within a few minutes, I had located Howard’s ring tucked out of sight under some weeds at the base of a tree, at the edge of the dropoff.
Howard was mowing, and I held up the ring as he glanced over – Both arms went up and he gave a celebratory yell!

Just thirty minutes from getting out of the car, I was on my way home with Howard now having a much better day.

For less than the cost of hiring a metal detector, Howard’s decision to engage an experienced Ring Finder gave him the very best chance of having his ring quickly located.

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Lost Ring Found in Plantings – Russell, Bay of Islands.

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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I have a couple of people for whom I have found lost rings, not once but twice…
Paul is one of them.

I got a call from him saying he’d done it again!

I had previously found his ring almost exactly two years ago on the Russell beach, this time he’d lost it while working on planting some shrubs and it could have been in one of two locations.

The first was where he’d been trimming and clearing a well established patch of succulents – lots of potential nooks and crannies for a ring to drop down into, or hang up. I gave it a quick search without getting ‘down and dirty’ with the pinpointer before checking out what the second location looked like.

This alternative spot was a much larger area, but relatively open and I could close this off quickly with a very high probability of detection. If it wasn’t here I could then return to the original and devote the rest of the time going through it inch by inch.

This garden bed was raised up about 5′ from the road, and Paul had been planting, weeding, spreading bark and throwing garden waste across and down onto the truck deck, there was a possibility the ring may have come off and traveled across the road, in the direction of a steep bank.
I’d worry about that option later!

Starting at one end, I systematically made my way along the plantings until, under a small tussock, I saw the edge of a partially buried ring as the coil passed over it and triggered.

A quick TXT to Paul to let him know his lost ring was safe, again – and some relief on my part that I didn’t have to spend a fair few hours grubbing around up to my armpits in succulents at the first location.

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Valuable Heirloom Gold Ring Lost for 6 Weeks, Found in Compost Pile

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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Maureen habitually took off her heirloom ring in the kitchen, a beautiful gold, diamond and emerald ring handed down from her Grandmother.
One day, she caught up the ring as she swept the peelings off the benchtop into the bin.

She didn’t realise until later when she went to collect the ring and noticed it was no longer in its place.

A frantic search yielded no sign of it, and with subsequent searches over the next few weeks she narrowed it down to either having been thrown out with the rubbish, or buried in the compost.

She gave me a call, obviously there was nothing I could do in the worst case scenario of it going out in the rubbish collection, however I could search the compost (I’ve searched through far worse than domestic compost in the past!).

A quick scan with the high powered machine gave a target deep in the bin, could be a ring, or could be foil.
Only one way to find out, roll up the sleeves and on with the nitrile gloves.

I had a rough idea of where it sat inside the compost and it was well down after six weeks of additional food scraps and lawn clippings.
A dense cloud of fruit flies instantly erupted out of the compost as I scooped most of the recent material away and investigated deeper with the handheld probe.

Wasn’t long before I had pinpointed the location and I dug further into the slimy mass, checking each handful until I caught a glimpse of gold in the ooze.

I lifted it out and showed a tearful Maureen.
A quick rinse under the garden tap and it shone brightly once again, no worse off for it’s little adventure and another story added to its hundred-plus history.

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Engagement and Wedding Ring lost in Sea at Russell, NZ – Ring Finder Saves the Day

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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Jan phoned me last night, quite distressed.
She had just been swimming off the beach at Russell when her wedding ring slipped off her finger.
She momentarily glimpsed it on the gravelly seabed and did a ‘duck-dive’ to grab it.  Her gold and diamond engagement also slipped off – Disaster!

Repeated attempts to grab either ring were fruitless and she came ashore, leaving her treasured and sentimental rings out in the Bay.

Dejected, she made her way to Butterfish Restaurant for a drink to calm down, when one of the bar staff mentioned my service.  She called and asked, “Could I help?”

Of course.

Now, Russell beach is a very steep and mobile beach. The bulk of it is made up of pea-sized gravels which move with each wave.  This highly mobile, almost fluid gravel beach ‘Eats’ rings!

I arranged to meet Jan first thing the following morning to catch the next tide.

Early start next morning and I arrived to see Jan ready to meet me.
I had calculated the tidal heights and knew that I would be getting wet, but I cleared the exposed beach first – Assume Nothing, Believe No-one, Check Everything.

As expected, no rings were found and I moved out into the water, my feet sinking over the ankles in the soft gravels – I’ve been here before… It’s never an easy recovery.

I did about three or four passes along the beach, getting deeper and deeper.

A whisper in the headphones caught my attention. This wasn’t another fleck of copper, or one of the many thousands of can pull tabs or bottle caps that infest this beach. The whisper said, “dig me…”

The hole refilled as soon as the scoop came out, missed it! Next time I sent the scoop deep, easily 40cm down and cut it back under the target. Heaving several kilos of gravel out ensured I had it.

After much sifting, a gold ring slowly emerged out of the gravel! I held it up to Jan, her face lit up and she started walking down the beach.

Now for number two.
I knew it was nearby, and how deep in the gravel it would be. In a few seconds I had located and captured it.

Both rings accounted for, I waded ashore.
Job done.

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Ring Lost at Long Beach, Russell, Found by Metal Detectorist

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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Dave posted on the local Russell Facebook group that he had lost his gold wedding ring in the sea at Long Beach in Russell while on holiday.

Several people recommended me to him, and he made contact.

He had unfortunately put a detailed location on Facebook, not a good idea these days as there are a lot of what I call “Ring Collectors” – less altruistic sorts who look for social media posts with the intention of an easy find for themselves.   Urgency was paramount, only the other day, I had a ring ‘sniped’ after a Facebook post gave away too much. Nothing is more heartbreaking than turning up for a recovery only to see a recent focused grid pattern in the immediate area – and no ring.

I had an ongoing scuba recovery in progress, however that ring was very secure where it was, I needed to find Dave’s ring before it was lost.  The timing of the tides meant I was able to make the first attempt immediately and I spent a few hours gridding the area Dave had indicated in his FB post.  When I came out of the water, the tide was high enough to prevent ‘magpies’ from searching, and I knew I would have to return the following day on the next tide.

Had some more dialog with Dave that night about the circumstances of loss, and gave him a much higher resolution aerial view for him to mark where he thought he lost it.

The new area marked by Dave was smack in the middle of my first grid, it was fairly unlikely I had missed it – and even more unlikely someone had randomly happened across it in the 24Hrs between loss and Dave’s post. There are several obvious large rocks on the seabed, which Dave could not recall seeing. That meant he was further over than he thought. I started planning a new search area off to the side.

Day 2: I again arrived well before low tide in order to secure ‘my patch’, there was another metal detectorist in the vicinity, although he did not have a submersible machine. Straight down the beach and into the surf…

Another hour and a pouch full of aluminium trash later, I got a hit under the coil – only to lose it again as a breaking wave knocked me off my feet. However it wasn’t long before I had it again, and on the second scoop the coil was silent.  I shook the sand out of the scoop and nestled in amongst the broken shell, was Dave’s ring.

Back to the car, and I sent him a picture to let him know it was now safe soon to be couriered to him.

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Phone Lost in Russell, Found in Dense Scrub

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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Jimmy contacted me as his houseguest had lost his phone in some scrub near Russell.

He had been helping him clear invasive trees from a steep and very overgrown hillside, with his phone ‘safe’ in a leg pocket, secured by a hefty press-stud.

At some stage in his wanderings and stumblings through the dense undergrowth, the press stud on the pocket had been caught and come undone – The phone likely found its way out shortly after. “Murphys Law” came into play with zero reception, so his attempts to ring or otherwise locate the phone were futile.

The going was very tough with a large coil, negotiating the many trees lying where they had fallen, in places the branches meant I couldn’t get closer than a metre or more to the ground surface so I focussed on clearing the more accessible areas with the big coil and the machine running in full sensitivity for the merest whisps of a signal. Constant impacts from branches and vegetation, coupled with the mineralisation of the ground made the machine extremely “chatty”.  It took all my focus to decipher the barrage of sounds, whilst trying to stay upright negotiating the steep slippery ground, fallen branches and trunks.

I was already planning on how I would go about searching the area with the small 6″ coil on a special wireless rig I custom made for such scenarios, to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t looking forward to the many potential hours this recovery might take. However it was a tightly defined – albeit extremely difficult,and relatively large – area, so I knew it was just a matter of getting a coil close enough to pick up the missing phone.

I worked my way through the gorse and scrub, and in one area where several trees had been felled, I got a faint, but repetitive signal coming from under a trunk.

Placing the machine down, I slipped my arm in through the tangle of branches and stretched my fingers out under the fallen trunk.

It was with great satisfaction that I felt my hand close around a shape and glassy texture definitely not encountered in nature.  After facing a potentially very slow and intricate search across the hillside, I was possibly more relieved than the owner!

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Watch Lost on Russell Lifestyle Block – Found

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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Timely engagement of an experienced Ringfinder using state of the art equipment will always give you the very best chances of recovering your item, and all the irreplaceable memories and sentiment it holds.

Last weekend, Nathalie was dismantling an old chicken run on their rural lifestyle block near Russell. Having already snagged her gold watch that day, she thought it prudent to remove it and place it in the overalls pocket for safekeeping.
And forgot all about it.

Later she realised she hadn’t put the watch back on, so went to the overalls only to find the pocket empty.
One lost watch.

She recalled that at one stage, her friend had picked up the overalls and slung them over her shoulder as she headed away from the house and across a marshy area to where the new chicken run was being built. In doing so, a pencil fell from the pocket which her friend picked up before carrying on along the track through the marsh.

Had it fallen out when the overalls were thrown over the shoulder? Along the narrow overgrown track through the marsh? Or even before that?

They all had a search around the property before Nathalie called me. She wasn’t ready to engage the services of a Ringfinder at this stage, so I gave her some tips as to where it might be, and how she might find her lost watch.
She headed straight out into the rainy night with a torch to try and locate it, and tried again the following morning.

The watch remained missing.

Nathalie contacted me again that afternoon and conceded defeat – Would I please come and find it for her?
Of course.

The next morning, I boarded the car ferry to Russell to conduct the search.
On arrival, Nathalie went through the timeline and actions. The areas involved were quite overgrown with dense grass, scrub, and reeds in the marsh. Complicating the issue were numerous metal structures, odd buried bits of metal and chicken mesh being reclaimed by the grass.

I initially did a cursory sweep of her travels with the large coil, however there were too many conflicting targets. I had to switch to the tiny 6″ coil in order to pick my way through the background chatter. Also focussing on my Search & Rescue tracking and scene processing skills to assess where people had actually travelled in each area.
Not too easy given the disturbed grass was already springing back to it’s natural position, enhanced by the previous days warm and heavy rains accelerating regrowth.

I systematically covered each of the three key areas: Where the overalls had been slung on the shoulder, the subsequent path through the marsh, the newly built chicken run, and the original site of the old chicken run.

It was at the latter, when I started expanding the search area away from the centre, that I got a positive tone in the headphones.
I couldn’t see anything, so fired up the pinpointer and pressed it into the grass – It chattered away…as it had done many times that day (so many times…. only to be a nail or shotgun pellet).
This time though, I parted the grass to see a glint of gold, the shiny surfaces reflecting the yellow-green of the grass as though it was actively trying to camoflage itself.

I marked the location and wandered back to the house, ” Would you like to come for a walk?”
I led her down to where the watch lay, and pointed to where it was. She couldn’t see it.
A few hints were needed to guide her to it, and she was amazed at how invisible it was. Nathalie took a photo before she pulled it from the grass where it had lain for three days. “Four of us searched this area!”.

Without the SAR tracking skills and solid experience in recoveries, this could have been a very long search, and probably even unsuccessful for an inexperienced person, given the huge potential area, extensive background noise and multiple interaction locations.

 

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Diamond Ring and Necklace Lost in Russell – Both Found!

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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This one is a little different.

The story below was written by the owner of the found items and sent to me as I made my way home from the recovery – Really unexpected, and a very nice gesture on her part.

Sally writes:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nearly 17 years ago, on our 3rd date, my now husband bought me a diamond necklace. I have worn it almost every day since then … including our wedding 12 years ago.
A week before Christmas we came up to Russell for a holiday. On our first swim my husband remarked I had not removed it or a ring before coming down on the beach. He took them off for me and ran up to our bach with them and then we had our swim.
Afterwards we went to Kerikeri to visit friends for Christmas and came back to find the lawns had just been mowed by the local contractor.

The next day my husband remarked that I wasn’t wearing my necklace and I asked where he had put it? He thought about it and then made the dreadful realisation that he had put it on the car wheel while we were swimming.

Then we both realised that we had driven off and the mower had been and in all likelihood it was gone forever. He searched the lawn several times during the rest of our holiday. Nothing.
Feeling resigned to losing it we came home to the Waipa and thought it would be an insurance claim in the New Year.

Today I saw a post on The Russell Noticeboard about someone having lost earrings and I was interested to read comments. That is where I saw the reference to Northland Jewellery Recoveries. I thought it was worth a try and called Pete McGhee and what followed surpassed my hope or expectations.

He said there was good reason to be hopeful and he set off from an hour away, and within 30 minutes of arriving he texted me the photo of the two items he had found: the pendant and ring… right where we had searched thoroughly.

I can’t recommend him more highly. Thank you so much Pete.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Unfortunately, the very fine gold rope chain was not located. It is likely the mower effectively ‘vaporised’ it. However, the thin chain being so fragile probably saved the key components enabling them to be recovered unscathed.

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Wedding Ring Lost at Russell Beach – Found

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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Paul phoned me at work yesterday, “Is this Pete with the metal detector?”It transpired he had been enjoying a swim at Russell in the Bay of Islands, and had put his hands down into the beach gravels, and lost his wedding ring.He had lost it around high tide, so I arranged to meet him on site at low water later that afternoon.
Russell beach is a very steep, highly mobile pea-gravel, your feet sink up to the ankle as you walk and it ‘eats’ rings.  I have done a few lost ring recoveries here and they are always deep.
Paul had done the right thing though and acted promptly to contact me, as well as being able to meet me on site which always hugely increases the chances of a successful recovery.
I arrived shortly before he did, and decided to make a start. I selected an area as the most logical place for him to swim and started on the low tide mark – No sense in getting in the water if it wasn’t necessary.
Paul turned up in a few minutes and confirmed I was in the right area.  He then marked out the boundaries for me.I started my first grid pattern and within a minute I had a handful of gravel containing his ring!
It’s nice to have an easy one once in a while 🙂

 

 

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