June 27th, 2010 by Brad Lovell

Adrian was fishing at Mosman Bay Wharf as he watched his wedding ring slip off his finger and into the harbour. Unfortunately at the time of Adrian’s phone call, I was moving house and had my scuba gear packed away in boxes. I mentioned to Adrian I would probably not be able to help until the following week, but I could tell by the desperation in Adrian’s voice he wanted someone in the water searching for the ring ASAP. After many phone calls to dive shops, Adrian called me back mentioning he was not able to find anyone willing to help him. Feeling sorry for Adrian, I put my move on hold and found the boxes my scuba gear we’re packed in. I met Adrian at Mosman Wharf the following afternoon. The unfortunate thing for me was the location the ring was lost, being right where the Sydney Ferry’s come in to pickup passengers. Not only is this dangerous, but I believe it is also illegal to dive in such a spot. But since the ring dropped so close to the wall, I decided to jump in anyway and give it my best. The water was a lot deeper than I expected, and as always in the harbour, visibility was no so good. The area where the ring had dropped had a very difficult ground surface. It was on a very steep angle, and consisted of jagged rock. It was almost impossible to detect the bottom of this location with any efficiency. Most of the time I was searching by sight, but unfortunately after an hour of searching, my air levels we’re low and it was time to come back up. Adrian was disappointed I did not recover his wedding ring, but at the same time realised it was a long shot.

October 28th, 2009 by Brad Lovell

Today’s job is a sad story with a happy ending. I received a phone call from a gentleman by the name of Fergus who found me via this website.
He had just been married the day before he called me. While the wedding photographer was taking photos of his Bride Simone, her 2 hour old wedding ring slipped off her finger and into the harbour. I can not even begin to imagine how she felt.
I will be honest, I really don’t like diving in Sydney Harbour, the water is murky and there is LOTS of boat traffic (not to mention sharks). And I had troubles sleeping the night before feeling nervous about this job…But how could I say no to helping Simone and Fergus considering these circumstances? The plan was to conduct the search yesterday, but due to poor weather I had to cancel. Although today was overcast, the wind had dropped so Fergus and I met up at Pier 4, Walsh Bay Sydney. As I was gearing up, a guy walked past questioning what we we’re doing. When Fergus mentioned I was looking for a lost wedding ring the guy laughed and said you will never find it in there, it is over 60ft deep! This was not great for my confidence, I was already dreading going under…but as always I was determined to find the lost ring. Once in the water, I began releasing the air from my BCD, and slowly sunk to the bottom. It was an eary feeling, getting darker and darker with each meter I descended. I finally hit the bottom at around 12 meters deep (around 36 feet?). The moment I hit the bottom, silt stirred up and made the murky water worse. I took a few moment to compose myself, let the silt settle and began the hunt.
The ring had only been underwater for a few days, so it could not have sunk very deep into the silt bottom. So I ignored any signal that could not be detected by my pinpointing device, which has about a 3 inch detection range. First signal that was in pinpointing range was a shining 18 CT White Gold Ring. Wow, you have no idea how happy I was to have found the ring. Not only for the sake of reuniting the ring with Fergus and Simone, but because I really wanted to get out of the murky water and quick! When I finally surfaced with the Ring in my hand, Fergus could not believe it. I had only been underwater for about 10 minutes, so what looked like mission impossible turned out to be a speedy recovery. Fergus called his wife to tell her the great news, and she even had a quick chat to me. You can tell when people ‘REALLY’ appreciate what you have done for them, and Fergus and Simone we’re incredibly thankful for what I did. In fact Fergus was so grateful he gave me one of the biggest rewards to date..thank you so kindly!