A chance meeting between a surfer and a hobby metal detectorist has led to a wedding ring lost in the sand for four years being reunited with its owner.
When Josh lost his wedding ring on the beach at Rabbit Island four years ago, he knew it would be near impossible to find.
Walking out for a surf there last month he glanced over at a man a few hundred metres down the beach waving a metal detector around. He thought back to the ring, that fell through a hole in his wetsuit bag all those years ago.
The ring was engraved with the name of the happy couple; ‘Josh.Helen’, and the year they were married - 1997. Josh, who asked to have his last name omitted, had never got around to replacing the lost part of a matching pair.
He then headed out into the water for his surf.
Afterwards, as he walked back to his car, he noticed there were only two cars parked in sight, not unusual for the early hours of a Sunday morning.
He saw the detectorist from earlier heading towards the other car and thought ‘what the hell’. So, wandered over to see if he knew of any metal detector Facebook pages, where he could ask about the ring.
“It was pure chance,” Josh says.
Cam Jeyes says it was just another day on the beach doing the hobby he loves – metal detecting when he found the engraved ring in the sand.
“I just worked 12 days with 1 day off – it’s like fishing for me, it’s my block everyone out and just cruise.”
He says he was just packing up for the day when Josh came up and asked what he was doing and if he’d found anything.
The pair got chatting about the lost ring and Cam asked, “your name’s not Josh, is it?”
“It took a while for him to click when I asked his name. I reached in my bag, pulled out the ring, shook his hand and said ‘congratulations, here you go’,” Cam says.
Cam had only just picked up the ring after that morning’s detecting session.
“I think we were both gobsmacked, we couldn’t believe it,” Josh says.
When Josh got back in the car with the ring now safe in his possession, he simply sent his wife some photos of him and Cam holding the ring, with no explanation.
“She clicked straight away and was just like ‘what the...’.”
Cam says it’s an unwritten rule with detecting that you try to find the owner of anything sentimental.
“Obviously anything with engraving on it, you try and get it back to them.
“There’s heaps of Facebook pages so you try and put it out there.”
He says the find was up there with some of his best - simply for the story.
Cam says, prior to the encounter with Josh, he was about to sit in his car and send a photo to a metal-detecting Facebook group to start the process of trying to find the owner.
He says if anybody in the region loses anything precious, not necessarily jewellery, they should get in touch with the local metal detector Facebook page.
“There’s plenty of people in this region who are willing to go out and help.”
Cam says it costs between $1500-2000 to get a decent detectorist set-up but he does it for the love of it rather than making money.
Josh says he can’t thank Cam enough.
“I guess it was nice to meet someone willing to share that.”
