February 10th, 2010 by Brad Lovell

Narrabeen Lagoon

I always enjoy a challenge when it comes to metal detecting. Some jobs are simple, and it literally takes me minutes to recover the lost item. But this has been a tough summer for the “Metal Detector Man”! Under water jobs are always difficult for too many reasons and variables to list. Which means my recovery rate for such jobs it low. I always mention this to my customers before starting a new job. I am not trying to talk myself out of business, but I like to be realistic. Here are some jobs below which had disappointing endings..

• Sam was attending a wedding that myself and Layne Beachley had to sneak around to get to a harbour side beach her ring was lost. The word soon spread via the wedding guests that Layne Beachley had lost her engagement ring, and she had hired the metal detector man to try and find it. The following weekend, Sam was at his friends holiday home throwing a ball in waist deep water. After diving for the ball, Sam believes this could have been the point when the ring fell off. I drove up to the central coast (Bonnels Bay) to search for Sam’s lost wedding ring. After a good 3 hour search covering the area with both my metal detectors, we decided to call it quits.
• Jan had this misfortune of losing the keel off her boat in the dirty Parramatta River. Jan knew of the area where she believed the keel to have dropped. Because it was a metal keel, I decided I could try searching for it with my under water metal detector. It wasn’t until I arrived to the spot I realised how bad the conditions we’re. The water was literally brown…with zero visibility. In fact I could not even see my air gauge pushed up against my mask. Anyway, I wasn’t going to let this stop me…I did my usual 360 degree rope search covering a 20 meter diameter. A few big signals but none of them the keel. After a couple of hours searching in darkness I ran out of air. If anyone has an idea or a service which could help Jan recover her 250 kilo keel, please contact me!
• Paula lost her diamond engagement ring at Narrabeen Lagoon. I actually had 2 attempts at this job, but could not perform the search with any sort of efficiency while my underwater detector was in for repairs. My 3rd attempt was a couple of weeks later, armed with my repaired detector. After completing both a north-west, and east west grid search of the area following my ropes, I was not able to find Paula’s engagement ring. If any metal detector guys to manage to find a diamond wedding ring at Narrabeen Lagoon, please contact me. Paula is more than happy to offer a generous reward.

July 19th, 2009 by Brad Lovell

I have not had much luck with my last couple of recovery attempts, which is not a great thing for my confidence. I am stubborn, and really hate to give up hope on a search…I know I shouldn’t take it personally, but it does make me feel defeated. But unfortunately, failure is often the nature of the service I provide. A couple of weeks ago a gentleman by the name of Damian lost his wedding ring in the Nepean River, near Penrith west of Sydney. This was the first time Damian’s wedding ring had ever slipped off his finger, and in this particular instance he happened to be standing on a jetty with the Nepean River below. Damian watched as his wedding ring dropped in the water, and his brother-in-law jumped straight in and began searching for the ring. After a quick phone call to his Wife, Damian had his wetsuit and joined in on the search. There we’re two major problems Damian and his brother-in-law encountered. One, the water was freezing cold. In fact we measured the water temperature at 12.5 degrees. The other problem was the bottom of the river was full of weeds. So visibility was virtually zero. After removing some weeds and searching, Damian and his brother-in-law gave up. Damian found my services on the Internet and decided to give me a call. The following Saturday myself and diving friend Matt headed west to the Nepean River. Matt geared up, and began searching the bottom of the Nepean for Damian’s Ring. After a bone chilling hour plus search, Matt was cold and exhausted. He found many items below, but unfortunately no gold/diamond wedding ring. I could tell Damian was disappointed, yet appreciative of Matt’s efforts at the same time. We we’re not about to give up on Damian yet. I really wanted to join in the underwater search myself…and after a call to Matt’s diving partner Alan, I had the thumbs up to borrow his diving equipment. On Sunday we we’re back at the Nepean river..this time both geared up ready to search. Damian had also meshed up some baskets so we could pull out the weeds to make our search easier. After clearing some weeds, Matt and I we’re both underwater, hunting for Damian’s elusive wedding ring. Visibility was horrible, to the point I could not see my hand infront of me. We we’re basically working blind, operating purely on sound from the under water metal detector..and the vibrations of our pinpointers. After about an hour plus of searching and removing copious amounts of rubbish, I finally had Damian’s large gold wedding ring in my hand. The search was finally over, and Damian was a VERY happy man. I want to thank Damian for being patient with the search process, and helping out where ever he could. And of course, thank you kindly for a generous reward. I also want to thank Matt, without your help I would never have been able recovered the ring. And also a special thank you to Alan for lending me your diving equipment. It is very much appreciated!