Matt from Aspley

Matt called me to say that he had competed in a Raby Bay triathlon on the weekend and as he was leaving the swimming stage he felt his wedding ring slip off his finger by this large rock. With 30 competitors right behind him there was no time to look for it or to stop. Matt and his wife were devastated. After the race he spent a good few hours feeling around the oyster and barnacle infested rocks but sadly to no avail.

I went down to Cleveland not knowing what to expect. I saw the rocks and the steep slope and wasn’t particularly hopeful. As soon as we got in to the water the sediment and mud turned visibility to 0. We would have to do this by feel. I cut my foot through my reef boots on an oyster and not long after Matt sliced his finger on another sharp shell. We’d have to do this carefully. There were a lot of signals, none quite 9 carat gold ring quality but we were becoming desperate and dug them anyway. A spoon, 20c, a screw driver and pipes but alas no wedding band.

We could not understand why is wasn’t there. We went deeper and deeper but still nothing. We were about to give up when I asked Matt more about his ring. He then mentioned it was mainly platinum with only gold edging! This changed everything as I was discriminating for 9 carat gold. Platinum would have been discriminated out as it has much lower conductivity than gold which means the detector would not have given a signal no matter how many times the coil was above it. After and hour and a half on the wrong discrimination setting, 10 minutes and the ring was back on his finger! It was certainly worth the frustration and blood to get it back. What a relief for everyone involved.