While we were out detecting in a town near our homes on a busy street, a man stopped by to ask questions about the capabilities of our detecting equipment. Which I found curious, so I asked him "what do you have on your mind?" He started in telling us a story about a couple, good friends of his that had gotten engaged to be married. They were out on a boat on the local lake celebrating their engagement, they had stopped in at the shoreline to rest in the shade. They decided that since the sun was setting it would make a great photo opportunity. Placing the engagement ring on a fish hook they dangled it over the water’s surface and were trying to capture the sunset through the ring. Well, I am sure we all can imagine how the rest of this part of the story goes. They searched and searched, with no luck, finally giving up. Until that day they meet me out detecting. I assured them that I would give it my best effort and the equipment I had would be up to the task also. The CTX 3030 was in my mind more than capable of searching in or around the water. So I gave them a business card and told them to call me when the water level of the lake had gone down, it was high due to recent rain storm we had and wouldn't be searchable in the place that they had lost the ring.
Months went by, and honestly I had forgotten about the conversation we had. Summer gave way to fall, and out of nowhere I received a phone call, it was about the lost ring. I called back the next day and we started making plans to give the recovery some effort. A day was set, I arrived at the meeting place after work and quickly changed clothes, and after about a mile ride along the shoreline we were there.
The gentleman, replayed the scenario over in his mind, now it had been over a year since the ring was lost, and as if fait had something to do with it the couple was also due to be married the following weekend. After a quick rundown of how the ring was lost I got started in a 30x30 foot square grid, digging every signal that even made a sound. The minutes gave way to hours, I had searched relentlessly in the area he said it was lost, with nothing to show for it. He had tried to stop me twice, not wanting to waste my time, questioning if my CTX could even find it, perhaps it had sank too deep for detection. I wouldn't give up, I expanded my search, and on the first pass that I made outside the search area he had laid out. I hit a 12.03 signal at 3 inches, all morning I have had signals like this one, and it had come up with foil trash, so I thought just another trash signal, dig this one and get on to the next one. To our surprise when I rinsed the sand out of the scoop, it was there.
A 1.25 carrot canary yellow diamond ring set in 18k gold, what a site after the time and the effort I had put in. I was so excited, we high fived and yelled. The ring that had been lost right after the start of the engagement, was no found right before the marriage. The ring itself was valued at over 10,000.00 USD, by far the nicest thing that has ever been in my sand scoop, and my nicest find ever.
Michael - Texas, USA
