Whangarei Tag | The Ring Finders

Tearful Loss of Wedding Ring at Ruakaka, Tearful Reunion When Found

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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A very tearful Laura phoned – she had just watched her wedding ring vanish into the sand beneath her feet while in the sea at Ruakaka.

Her husband immediately grabbed the pink swimming goggles off the indignant daughter and he spent a long time searching for it until he was, as Laura described, “mildly hypothermic”.

I had recently returned a lost ring for Jax, Laura’s mother in law, and Jax recommended that Laura contact me immediately.

Which she did.

In the busiest summer season yet, I had literally only just returned from another ocean recovery 150km away near Whangarei and was exhausted. However, the emotion and desperation on the other end of the phone was very real – So I grabbed a strong coffee, some food, and threw the wet gear back in the car and made the two hour drive south.

I knew this part of the beach is metal detected every night at this time of year, and I was determined that this ring wouldn’t become part of someone’s collection.

On arrival the family met me, and Laura took me down to the beach and indicated the corridor where she thought the ring lay.

Fortunately, after a few days of strong offshore winds the surf was uncharacteristically very small for this coast. This was partially offset though by the corridor being right in the middle of the narrow surf lifesaving patrolled area, so lots of people to work around…

I did a quick scoping search, however this yielded nothing and ultimately I had to resort to my proven techniques to ensure every square inch was covered.

The beach was relatively trash-free, so the interruptions to the background threshold tones were few, and quickly dismissed.

Line by line I slowly closed off the indicated area, and I was starting to pre-plan the next search phase.

Suddenly a bold, gold tone in the headphones – The scoop came up out of the water and I rinsed the sand away.

There was Laura’s gold wedding ring.

I held it up to Laura, sitting on the beach, and she let loose with whoops and yells – closely followed by the rest of the beach!
They had by now all heard the story about this strange person zig-zagging around in the waves and had become invested in what I refer to as “The Worlds Most Boring Spectator Sport”.

After the excitement subsided, the handshakes and hugs done, I parked the car in the shade and slept solidly for a few hours before the drive home.

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Signet Ring Lost in Sea at Tutukaka, Found after Two Weeks

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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It was New Years Eve when Starlia was enjoying a swim at Whangaumu, near Tutukaka in New Zealand. As she stood in the sea, she was idly playing with the small engraved gold signet ring given to her on her 21st – when it slipped off and dropped.

Starlia and friends searched for some hours with masks and snorkels, but had to concede that her gold ring was lost to the sea.

Nearly two weeks later, she came across one of my recovery stories and got in touch. Was a recovery possible, and would I be able to help?

The next day found me walking the narrow track over the headland to the little bay. I wanted to catch the slack tide as the current flowing out from the Ngunguru estuary can be fierce in places. This makes life difficult when you’re trying to stay in place while retrieving a target from deep in the sand. Starlia had mentioned that there were two ‘dog sized’ rocks as a reference point.

As I walked the track that overlooks the bay, I looked down and saw two largish rocks that had been placed under the water about 10m off the beach. “Excellent, they’ve marked where they think they lost it”.

I was soon in the water and started the search around the rocks. A couple of fishing sinkers and a $1 coin that had been in the tide for many years told me that that no metal detectors had been through here since the loss, so the ring was still here – somewhere…

I rolled the rocks over – just in case they had inadvertently placed them ON the ring… Nothing.

Priding myself on an exceptional recovery rate, I could say with certainty the ring was not near the two rocks. Could the sand have built up during the bad weather we had over New Year or through natural sediment shift? I fell back onto my mantra of “Trust no-one. Assume Nothing. Check everything”.

Discounting the cairn, I started to search on the basis of no defined start point and took the grid right out to the edge of the channel dropoff.

In the clear water, I could see the usual sea life swim past. A school of yellow eye mullet momentarily investigated the cloud of sediment I was raising, the steady parade of small Eagle Rays leaving the estuary. Several schools of juvenile Kahawai and even a small Bronze Whaler slid past between me and the beach. The clarity was a pleasant change to the scuba recovery I had completed the previous day in zero visibility! That story will be up in coming days.

I had covered maybe 60% of the bay when Starlia arrived and I waded ashore to meet and greet.
The cairn of rocks wasn’t theirs!

Starlia pointed out two other rocks that I hadn’t yet reached, I felt better knowing the ring hadn’t been missed. Although the tide had now turned and the incoming current was starting to build rapidly. I quickly covered the deeper sections at the drop off before they became unworkable.

More fishing sinkers and rusting bottle caps then deep down, a faint smooth tone, very quiet but consistent. It didn’t have the harshness of a cap, nor the rude raspiness of a fishing sinker, but was it another aluminium can tab?

One scoop…two, the mobile sand and the current was backfilling the hole as fast as I could dig. This is when you can lose a ring beyond range of the machine if not careful as it sinks in the disturbed sands. I refixed the location and went deep, heaving several kilos of sand out of the hole. The hole was now quiet, but was it the ring?

I spread the scoop contents out across the bottom, waved the coil over it and a beautiful pure tone sang out. Only one thing sounds like that!

Rescooped the patch of sand where ‘a’ ring lay and rinsed the scoop – in the corner was a delicate gold signet ring. Job done.

I held it up to Starlia who was watching from the beach. Whoops and yells from Starlia (and another couple who I hadn’t realised were watching).

After the photos and hugs, I started the climb back up the hill.

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Important Key Lost in House – Found by Intensive Search

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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Kim phoned me on behalf of a friend asking if I was able to do a house search for an important key.
I generally don’t do domestic searches for lost items purely because they can be. by necessity, very intrusive into peoples ‘space’.

Whilst conventional metal detectors are ineffective inside houses, I have a range of small coils, pinpointers and remote cameras to aid a physical search.

Kim explained the circumstances: Her elderly friend had lent their car to another elderly friend – who had misplaced the key.
It could have been anywhere from the car to inside the house, maybe in a wood shed…or, who knows?

Knowing the significant expense and hassle involved in an insurance claim, especially for an 80-something year old, I agreed.
Though it was over 100km away, the travel would largely be covered by a Pay-It-Forward recovery I had done recently.

I arrived the following morning and met with Jan, she was most apologetic as we went through retracing her steps as best we could, and I explained how I would be conducting the search.
Starting with the car, the last known point where she would have had the key, I began the systematic and meticulous elimination of areas.
With the car and driveway cleared, the search progressed up onto the deck and then into the house.

From here it was a matter of examining everything Jan had, or had potentially interacted with the previous day. On, in, under, beside, behind…

An hour later, in the bottom of a box of assorted dog leashes, treats and toys etc. a shape caught my eye.

I held up a key, ” This it?”

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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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Gold Ring lost in Sea at Uretiti Beach – Found !

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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Frances was enjoying a swim with her friends at Uretiti Beach, near Whangarei after a round of golf.

While in the water, she suddenly felt her very sentimental gold ring slip off her finger. Looking down, she could see it although couldn’t get to it. After repeated efforts she finally lost sight of it – Gone.

She was understandably very upset when she phoned me, the emotion of losing an obviously very special item was clearly evident over the phone and she wasn’t entirely convinced it would be worth trying to find it again.

I assured her that after hearing the details I didn’t consider it irretrievably lost, and made arrangements to drive down the following morning.

Onsite, we walked down to, and along the beach a little way.

She had taken a photo of the dunes, which helped narrow down where they had been – Nothing boosts the odds in your favour like having an accurate start point!

I walked down the beach and straight into the tide – with a 150km drive each way, I needed to ensure I found it on this visit.

The waves were small today, which was a pleasant change for this ocean beach

After about an hour and a half, I lifted the scoopful of sand and there was a lovely gold band.  I held it up to show Frances who was up by the dunes and waded in.

On handing it to Frances, I joked, “This where you say it’s not yours” with a chuckle.

I stopped grinning as soon as she replied, “It’s not mine.”

“What?”

Back into the tide.

Thirty minutes later, another ring.  The reaction when I showed Frances was enough to tell me that this time it was definitely the right one.

That job done, I now start the sleuthing to locate the owner of the other ring…

 

 

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Commercial Keys Lost While Mowing in Whangarei- Found Two Days Later.

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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Steve is a Lawnmowing Contractor who, after finishing a job returned to his truck only to find his keys had vanished.

He throughly searched the property, and even lifted two storm drain covers and fished around in the ooze with a rake to try and find them, with no luck.

Reluctantly he arranged to have his truck and mowing gear towed home.

On phoning the Automobile Association the AA chap had seen my other recent key recovery from the side of the highway and recommended that Steve contact me, not having considered the metal detecting aspect of recoveries Steve was quickly on the phone.

Despite being an hour and a half away, I drove down straight from work to sort his troubles.

Steve took me through where he had been – and showed me the two drain gratings right where he had been fussing around the truck…

With some careful questions, I was able to put the drains right at the bottom of the list, although I had the waterproof remote camera and the nitrile gloves onboard, just in case!

I started the systematic grid of the garden, I could tell Steve was watching me with a funny look.  The keys would have stood out easily on the manicured lawn, however the secret to success is to have a method, and stick to it rigidly. Nothing would be worse than having a no-find and starting to second guess where you may have missed them.

The formality of searching the back lawn was over very quickly.  I started around the edges where shrubs overhung the grass, progressively crossing areas off and working my way towards the front yard – and those drains…

Then I got a good signal from under a bush on the other side of the path, I peered under and there they were.

Job done, the keys were exchanged for a good handshake and I headed off on the long trip home.

 

 

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Urgent Search for Whangarei Ring Lost in Surf, Found!

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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Late yesterday afternoon, Vega contacted me for help to find her lost ring at the beach.
She had been boogie-boarding at Ocean Beach, a beautiful surf beach on the outer coast of Whangarei – and had lost her ring in the sea.
After some google searches, her daughter suggested that Vega contact me.

Shortly after I had been given the circumstances, I was asking my long-suffering boss for the day off, again.
He agreed (I could imagine the eyes rolling), and so I was able to call Vega back and tell her that I would travel down first thing in the morning.
Marine recoveries are always against the clock – Never more so than when the person is on the last day of their holiday, and the ring has been lost in the intertidal zone on a surf beach!

I met Vega and her husband onsite, and I was very pleased to see they had pushed a stick into the sand yesterday to give me their best guess as to where it might be.
The dry fluffy sand where they had been sitting was the first search. Five minutes into it I dug a loud tone in the headphones – A flash of gold emerged…only to be a ‘kiddy-bling’ butterfly ring.
With a big grin, I jokingly asked Vega’s husband if this was it.
Dry sand cleared, and the tide approaching low, I returned to the car to get kitted up to head out into the surf.

This is where ringfinding experience, dedication and discipline come into play – careful tracking of coil coverage is critical to avoid missing even a ring-sized patch of sand. Not an easy task with surf breaking on you.
I wanted to cover the difficult section in the deepest water first, as this would be the first to be out of reach after the tide turned. It’s physically demanding fighting the waves, currents and pushing the detector through the water for several thousand sweeps.
After clearing the deeper water, I was glad to be able to start moving into the shallows for some respite on the arms.

Some time later, I heard a distinctive quiet tone in the shallows.
It took three fast scoops of sand to get to it, the shelly sand was very light and mobile and flowed straight back in the hole as fast as I could remove it.
The hole was quiet after the third scoop, and I lifted it out confident that there was a ring inside.
After sluicing the sand through, I was left with a few shells – and a gold ring.

Vega was further up the beach, standing in the shallows watching the sea. She looked up as I approached, I held the ring up with a big smile.
Her eyes lit up as she put the ring straight onto her finger and vowed it wouldn’t come to the beach again.

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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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Lost Ring in Whangarei Paddock – Found!

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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At the start of this year, I carried out a ring recovery at Tutukaka for Lorelles husband who had lost his signet ring in the water.
I certainly didn’t expect a message from Lorelle seven months later, asking me to find HER ring…
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She had taken the ring off to put moisturiser on and had transferred the ring to another finger.
Later, she had been tending to her pony at their home in Kamo, feeding hay, taking covers off, you know the sort of horsey things – and all in nice soft mud.
As Lorelle told me the story over the phone, I was sticking pins in the mental map and by the time she got to, “When I got back to the house, it was missing” I had already formed a good idea of where and how I would be searching.
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I drove down this morning, and met her husband at the paddock with an icey southerly blast tearing through.
We ran through the story again, from his viewpoint this time, which confirmed the likely area to be the long grass between the car and the pony.
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He had already tried with a borrowed metal detector but had been unable to locate the ring. This is where an experienced metal detectorist with the right skill set to know not only where to search, but also how to search makes the difference.
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The 33kV powerlines overhead were certainly upsetting my machine, and some tweaking was required to filter out most, but not all, of the interference.
I started the search pattern where the car had been parked and within 5 minutes, parted the grass to reveal a beautiful emerald ring.
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It was a long journey for a five minute search, but it could well have taken five hours…or more – You can never tell until that elusive ring is safely recovered.
Lorelle now has her ring back on her finger, and no doubt there will be some friendly banter between them about each losing their ring !
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Matapouri Lost Ring – Found!

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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Ring Finder – Ring Recovery Specialist…Lost ring? Lost necklace? Lost keys?… Metal Detector Service – Call ASAP 021 401626

Matapouri Bay is a very popular beach on the Tutukaka coast with its soft yellow-gold sand and clear ocean water. Unfortunately the beach environment is also one of the prime locations for lost items.
Loss of a ring at the beach is usually due to that fateful combination of sunscreen and wet hands, which can stealthily remove rings, sometimes without the wearer even being aware.
It is advisable to leave rings at home when visiting the beach. At the very least taking them off and leaving them somewhere safe, in a pocket or bag.
However despite precautions, even being in a pocket can be no guarantee that the beach won’t take and hide your precious jewellery…As Tuyana found out a week ago.

She had been enjoying the day at the beach with family, and took her sentimental gold and emerald ring off and put it in the pocket of a dress laying with some other clothes for safekeeping.

At the end of the day, the dress was collected during packing up and when the pocket was later checked for the ring, it was missing.

And so began another ring recovery story.

A local offered to try and locate the ring the following morning with his metal detector, although regrettably was unsuccessful.
After a detailed phone conversation later in the week with Tuyana, I headed down to Matapouri from the Bay of Islands the following weekend to see what I could do.

I had another appointment at Tutukaka at 9am, so made it an early start, leaving at 2am and was on the beach just before 4. I have found four hours searching is usually sufficient to secure 90% of rings – if there is an accurate start point.

By torchlight, I marked out the various high, medium and low probability areas between the ‘towel spot’ on the beach, and the carpark. Then switched the torch off and after a few minutes to allow the eyes to recover, started searching by starlight. One of the joys of having an audio-only machine with no menus or target ID numbers to read.
The area where Tuyana was sitting was probably clear, having already been searched. I rechecked it anyway [Assume Nothing, Believe No-one, Check Everything].

Now I moved into the almost arcane side of things…
We, as a species, are really quite predictable in our unconscious movements.
Have you been on a walk and seen a puddle on the track with new routes caused by people walking around, rather than through it?
Crossing the road, you always adjust your step to land on the curb, not in the gutter… This concept follows through into Ring Finding.

Just under an hour from starting, and while searching the margins around Tuyanas likely path back to the car, I found myself crawling around under one of the boardwalks that leads down onto the beach.
I carefully and systematically checked around each supporting post. Heavy stainless fittings meant the main coil was no good, so it was inch by inch with the handheld pinpointer.
At the third or fourth post, I got a signal just off to the side, I scooped the sand with my hand, and my fingers closed on the shape of a ring.

After verifying by touch that it wasn’t one of those old-style ‘Beaver Tail’ pulltabs off a drinks can, I flicked the headlamp on and sitting in my hand was a beautiful emerald ring.
At just after 6am, I felt it was early enough to text Tuyana and let her know. After all, how better to wake up to the new day knowing your precious lost ring is now found?

Later that morning, after my other appointment, I got to meet Tuyana and add her smile to my collection, then drove off with my own smile.

Job done.

 

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