island beach state park, engagement ring lost in water

Ally reached out to me as a last-chance effort to recover her precious engagement ring, which had unfortunately been dropped in the bay on a nice Jersey Shore summer afternoon. She was very concerned, as it had already been in the water for close to a week. I asked why she had waited so long to call me, and she replied that “another local ring finder looked and had no luck.” I usually won’t follow up behind another ring finder, but Ally hadn’t heard any more from him about his follow-up search, and was desperate at this point.

After a long conversation, I decided Ally really needed me, and agreed to do the recovery. She sent me all the pertinent information, and I assured her I would go at the first possible break in the wind and weather. The tides would also have to coincide with the search day. Our first conversation was at 11 PM the day before, when I told her I would check in with her next morning. The following morning at 5 AM, as I was getting ready for work, I looked the weather over real good, and guess what, “today is the day.” I texted Ally and told her I was going for it today before low tide; she was thrilled with the timely updates, which she was not used to.

I suited up with all my gear and proceeded with the 1/3 mile walk in the water, just to get to the location it was lost. Once I was set up, I started to do a tight grid search, clearing over 20 signals, all of which had potential, to ensure her ring wasn’t missed by an overpowering signal. It really seemed like too many targets for an area that was supposedly searched just 6 days prior, even though this is a huge boaters party area. And no, they were not recent drops, as they were all down at least 4″ plus. I was super confident in my location, so I kept plugging along, and after about 45 minutes my metal detector screamed out a low consistent tone that almost immediately had Ally’s ring written all over it.

While clearing the sand from my scoop, I could feel the tink, tink, tink of her ring, but at first glance, I didn’t see it hiding under the shells. But I knew that tink was NOT a shell, and gave the scoop a little wiggle, and there it was, WOW, was this a heart-testing moment, seeing the diamonds sparkling back at me. My gut was right, I was in the right spot, and NJ Ring Finder just made someone’s last chance hopes a true reality. !!! #njringfinder,#jerseyshore,#ringfinder,#lbi,#lost,#metaldetector,#Foundit,#howtofindlostring,