January 28th, 2009 by Brad Lovell

I was contacted by Stacey, who had a terrible day at Balmoral Beach. Not only did she lose her wedding band, but also her engagement ring. Stacey explained she was washing the sand off her hands in the shallow water. Cold water causes the fingers to shrink, and also acts as a lubricant. When Stacey realised her rings had fallen into the water, her and her husband spent 4 hours searching frantically for her rings. Unfortunately, they we’re unable to find the ring, and contacted me the next day. The chances of finding a ring once it has fallen in the water are very slim. Especially after a few tide cycles. I packed my car with my metal detector, and my long handled sand scoop and headed down to Balmoral Beach. Stacey showed me the approximate area of where she feels the rings fell off. I got to work, and spent around 2 hours searching for Stacey’s rings. When Metal Detecting for fun, I usually only dig when I hear nice crisp solid signals…but when searching for someones lost item, I will dig every little signal I hear. This is very time consuming, but I cannot afford to miss a thing. Unfortunately I was unable to find either of Staceys rings. I could see Stacey was very dissapointed when I ended my search. I decided to try again the following day, who knows what the tide could have washed up. Once again, I was unable to find anything, except a pocket full of pull tabs and bottle caps. Balmoral Beach is close by, so I am still looking for Stacey’s rings to this day. If anyone does happen to find a lost wedding band and engagement ring at Balmoral, please send photos of it to bradl@bigpond.net.au, and I will forward them to Stacey. (I have not given up yet!) These rings are obviously very sentimental to Stacey, and represent very important stages of Stacey’s life.