Tag: rescue

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Finding Zsófia’s ring at Henley Beach

I was just settling into a quiet evening at home last night when Henley Beach Surf Club phoned around 7.30 asking if I could possibly help a couple near the jetty.
Turned out Zsófia had lost her ring 20 or 30 metres out in chest high water and was very concerned about the bad weather due later.
I grabbed some water proof detecting gear and headed down there to see if I could help.
Once I finally got down to Henley from Hillcrest I found Zsófia and headed out to where her husband Danka was trying to dive down and find the ring, dropped a marker in the water at roughly where they thought the ring was and started work.
I searched about 15m north/ south and about the same east/ west but unfortunately didn’t find the ring before nightfall. The tides looked fairly good for Friday afternoon so I suggested I head back there around midday and try again with the ring possibly out of the water or maybe just in shallow water.

So today I headed back to Henley Beach about 40 minutes before low tide and worked the area again which was in shallow water and worked back up the beach a bit into only shin deep water when I was rewarded with a loud (so shallow) mid tone (where I would expect gold to be) and was able to just lean down and pull the ring out from about 2″ under the sand. I was only searching for 15 minutes or so after sticking a plastic bag over my dry non-waterproof gear in some serious rain.
I wasn’t sure it was the right ring so sent a pic to Zsófia and received an elated and relieved phone call back 🙂 It has now been picked up and is back where it belongs 🙂

Sophia's Wedding RIng
Sophia’s ring back with her
Ring and metal detector
Sophia’s ring and the Minelab Sovereign GT
Sophia's ring and the Coiltek WOT used to find it
Sophia’s ring and the Coiltek WOT used to find it

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gear used was a Tesoro Sand Shark last night in the water and the Sovereign GT and big coil today.

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Happy new year and a white gold ring trifecta

Happy New Year everyone and best wishes for a loss free 2017.

2016 ended a little disappointingly for me with a search for 3 rings on Friday at Somerton Park. Unfortunately the rings probably ended up somewhere in the surf zone a few days after that big storm stripped sand from the beach. The combination of pounding waves and the beach re-filling with sand after the storm meant that the rings were going to be deep and difficult to track down.

After learning a bit about how they were lost I methodically checked a roughly tennis court sized area gridding north/ south and east/ west. After a couple of hours I picked up a whisper of a signal near the water and dug out one ring at around 12″ deep. So 1/3 and pushing towards impossibly deep.

After another hour I gave up, having not received any worthwhile signals. We had a chat about the best way forward and decided to leave it for some better weather and/ or less sand and headed home.

Saturday was another adventure trying to find a new Apple watch lost in the Murray. After about 10′ deep the water was pitch black and after only about 20 minutes dive time I pulled the pin on the search as too dangerous, too small chance of success and the location a little too ambiguous given the conditions. Signals were everywhere with all the fishing sinkers, metal rubbish etc next to a boat ramp so I had to manually check each signal by hand at up to 15′ in sightless conditions. Just too hard.

So, today I received a call from Tony that the sand/ weather back at Somerton Park was more favourable and it might be worth catching up again for another look. I tuned the Minelab Sovereign GT with every possible setting to get a little extra depth and searched extremely slowly near where the first ring was found. Ring pull, ring pull, … and so on then the slightest change in threshold (background hum) on the detector, not a beep, just a tiny change of note. I decided to dig it and pulled the wedding band out from somewhere around 14″ down- crazy. So 2/2 rings.

Having found the 2 rings now reasonably close to each other I doubled down and did what I could to drag every bit of performance out of the detector and myself. Eventually I nearly missed an even slighter signal, not even a whisper, just a hint of a nulling of the tone. I normally would not have dug this signal but did this time due to it being fairly close to where I found the second ring. Dig, dig, dig, dig … 10″, 11, 12, 13, somewhere near 15″. I kept losing that tiny signal and re-finding it. Eventually I scooped up that 3rd ring at a ridiculous depth thanks to the incredible Sov GT and 15″ Coiltek Manufacturing WOT coil.

I have a feeling the ring owners had given up on them a bit so I couldn’t be happier to return those 3 rings back to Kim. A real challenge pushing machine and me to absolute limits with a lot of luck and the sea/ weather cutting me a bit of slack. Great feeling.

white gold rings
Kim’s rings back where they belong
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Windsor gardens search for a lost white gold wedding band

Elena called me late this afternoon after finding my well hidden ad on Gumtree (I need to fix that). Anyway, it turned out George had lost his ring along a street and asked if I could take a look. The job was just around the corner so I packed the car and headed out and was there within 20min or so.

The ring was likely to be on either side of the road, so I spent maybe an hour searching one side then concentrated on the stretch along the other side of the road. Nothing too tricky about it and it was just a matter of time before it turned up under some leaves and bark at the base of a bush.

The only real issue with this one was lots of bottle tops and pull tabs along the road verge, but I was pretty confident of eventually getting the coil over it.

Gear was Minelab Sovereign GT with the smallest coil I have for it (to work in the metal junk) and the ever reliable Garrett Pro-pointer. A nice result and a great big chunk of ring back on George’s finger.

elena

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White gold ring recovered for Trish at Semaphore, South Australia

Trish phoned up this morning after losing her ring swimming yesterday afternoon in Semaphore a popular beach location west of Adelaide. I caught up with her husband Jim today at low tide and we worked out the best search area and how far down the beach it was likely to be.

I started about 5m out of the search area and worked my way down to the water searching about 20m lines each way. After several bottle tops, a pull tab, some junk jewellery and a few coins I picked up that nice rounded, mellow gold sound with a big target just below the surface. I only had to reach in about 1″ of sand and there it was.

A quick wash in the water to remove the sand and it was back with Jim just as Trish turned up to see how we were going. Huge smiles everywhere and a hug from Trish for another successful search at Semaphore.

white gold ring

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After that I popped down south for another ring, but unfortunately they couldn’t get down there to give me a rough location so will put that one off for another day.

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Sentimental ring lost and found at Semaphore South Australia

Ring found in Semaphore

Mary contacted me via facebook to ask if I thought it was possible to find a ring lost on New Years Eve while swimming. After a few questions it sounded like a fairly easy job and we agreed to meet up the following day at low tide. Given the time and rough depth of water when it was lost I was able to work out roughly how far down the beach to search while Claudia worked out a possible north and south boundary along the beach.

Once I had a rough area to work in I had a guess at a decent place to start and walked my first line. The first signal turned up around 3/4 of the way to the other boundary and after a quick dig in the sand out popped Claudia’s ring. So probably 10 minutes of set up time and 5 minutes of actual detecting. Ring found in Semaphore

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Sentimental engagement ring lost and found in Seacliff, South Australia

Engagement ring

Caroline called last night after losing a very sentimental ring down at Seacliff, a popular southern beach in Adelaide. Unfortunately it was lost while walking the dog so the search area was huge. We had a bit of a chat trying to work out the most likely areas and even then the search area was about 150m x 50m which is nearly 2 acres.

I separated that area into 3 sub searches, nothing in the first, then 2 hours searching the main walking area- nothing, then only left with the path Caroline would have walked onto the beach from the car. Nothing in the first pass, turned around to head back, walked 2m and there it was. Hiding about 4″ under some powder soft sand was this beautiful and precious ring. Caroline couldn’t believe her luck and looked a little in shock, but the smiles took over she is one very happy, relieved lovely lady.

This search was tricky simply because of the large area involved but with a little detective work and some perseverance we got there.

Engagement ring

 

 

 

 

 

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Lost and found wedding ring in Magill

John from Magill phoned up this morning to see if I could help find his wife’s lost wedding ring. Katherine had lost the ring while gardening in the backyard yesterday and looked online for a hire detector.

The search area was about 10m^2 of lawn, a couple of paths, the green bin and 2 garden beds.

I searched 1/2 of the first garden bed first, then gridded the lawn to take that out of the equation. Next was the other half of the first garden bed (near a steel fence) and that is where I found it. Just tucked under some loose lawn clippings.

Returned wedding ring
Katherine’s returned wedding ring

Both John and Katherine were extremely happy to have the ring back and have contacted the insurance company to cancel their claim 🙂

 

 

 

Katherine with her lost and found wedding ring
Very happy to have her ring back 🙂
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Ring lost while gardening found by Adelaide Lost Ring Search

George phoned after he lost his wedding band while gardening in his backyard in Southern Adelaide (Aberfoyle Park). He had been scrambling around in some heavy undergrowth pulling out weeds and had no idea where the ring was lost.

Wedding ring found
George’s lost and found wedding band

I started metal detecting the green bin, then the paths he had carried the weeds along. Apart from a small lawn and the green bin, the rest of the search was all along a colourbond fence and a metal shed so it was difficult.

After about 1hr I eventually found it at the base of a tall clump of grass under a shrub right next to the fence. Fortunately the Garrett Pro Pointer can be detuned to detect adjacent metal items like fences.

 

 
George had emotionally given up on it, so was very happy and a little surprised to have his white gold wedding ring returned 🙂

Closeup of ring
George’s found wedding ring
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A little detective work finds the ring without a metal detector

Turned up to a nice house up on Mt Osmond at 5pm today to find a lost wedding band. Introduced myself and had a quick chat for a couple of minutes.

Then at around 5.03 I asked all the heavy questions about what he was doing at the time, where he had been, what was he wearing, is there a chance it is in the car, bin, house, and all that logistic stuff …

5.07 He mentions that he did pick a few bundles of weeds up and moved them around …

I ask if he was wearing gloves ….

5.08 he gets a glint in his eye, walks around side of the house, finds the gloves and pulls the ring out.

All done in 8 minutes without turning using the detector at all

Awesome

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Sentimental Ring Found

I had the absolute pleasure of helping out Phil and his wife with a very sentimental lost item yesterday.

The call came in while I was knee deep in databases so was in itself a welcome relief 🙂 Phil was originally looking for a hire detector to find his late mother’s wedding band but after a quick chat I explained that the hire detectors were not really ideal for new users in wet beach salt water sand environments and suggested just getting me to pop down there..

It was decided that I would drive down from the foot hills and run a search for the ring …

I met Phil at Glenelg where I handed him some flags to mark out the search area and went to work walking one pass, turning back and picking up a awesome low tone signal about half way back along the second pass. It didn’t sound too deep so I just leaned down and pulled the target out with my fingers and called Phil over 🙂

The ring had that high gold content almost red tinge and had a lot of weight about it. A beautiful ring, and awesome ending to the search and I will never forget the look on Phil’s face when he got his Mum’s wedding band back after having it on a chain every day for 18 years.

I love this job 🙂