I'm a new member here and thought I would post what I've found (so far) regarding this womans lost items. This is an email I'd sent to my relatives describing my find, so please bear with the context.
A couple of weeks ago I was snorkeling and found the silver ring pictured. It's "Mexican" silver - 92.5% pure & only worth about 5 bucks as scrap. So I put an ad on Craiglist "lost & found" and received a reply from someone who had saw an ad placed on this forum by someone else who had lost a gold chain, ring and pendant. I went to this site and found that the jewelry they had lost did not match the ring that I found. But they did leave a location where they had lost their items: It was at the same beach I go to, Haulover Park.
On Labor Day I went there (5 weeks after the womans items were lost) & after a while I started scouring the beach area in question. I should point out that I don't own a metal detector and didn't have one with me on this particular day. Some people who saw me poking through the piles of seaweed asked if I was looking for the "lost jewelry" and I said yes! They told me that the people who had lost it had hired a guy with a metal detector and that they had swept the entire area, including the water and that I was unlikely to find anything. But I kept looking anyway and after walking the beach I started walking the shallow water area. Now, bear in mind the area in question was 1000 feet long by 200 feet wide & part of it was underwater. But as luck would have it, while walking the shallows I saw a faint, glimmering outline of a gold necklace laying on the sand bottom under the water. I was right where the small waves were breaking, so I could only see it when the water receded. Three times I grabbed for it and only came up with handfulls of sand. Unfortunatly I had left my mask and snorkel by my blanket or I would have been able to stick my head under and find it in a second. And since I was up to my waist in water & I knew the necklace was right between my feet, I dared not move from that spot, lest it be lost forever! After about 20 minutes of this the water receded enough between waves where I spotted it for the fourth time. I plunged my arm under again and came up with yet another handfull of wet sand...but as it oozed out between my fingers a slender, tantilizing trail of gold appeared from the stream of wet sand, elusive, trying to escape, untill it's full, glistening 20" length was dangleing from my hand. I held it up to the sun and admired it's glittering, unmistakable color and weight: Gold. With nothing more than my eye's, hands and a bit of luck I'd found Gold!
The chain was 14K & weighed 19.63 grams, so it's scrap value was about $367.00 (at that time). I contacted the woman who originated this lost & found thread and she described the chain perfectly. We agreed to meet and she brought photo's of the chain that looked exactly like the one I'd found. So, since I had found it in the location she had specified, she was able to describe it & had accurate photo's of it, I decided it must be hers and gave it back to her. She was quite happy to say the least.
Yesterday I went back to the area with an Ace 250 I rented and swept the area at low tide: Nothing. I snorkeled the shallow area near the beach a dozen times and also found nothing. It's likely that the area where I found the chain is still underwater at low tide, so I may not have swept that area & the rest of her items may still be there, just under the sand/water & out of plain sight. I'm not really sure though, it is hard to calculate the distance from the dry beach to the water area where I found the chain, what with the changing of the tides and the lack of reference points. But I did have the presence of mind to note reference points as far as which section of the beach I found the chain in. I've got that narrowed down to about a 100' wide area.
If any of the members here live close enough to the Miami/Fort Lauderdale area, have access to an underwater detector and/or would like to help me recover this womans last 2 items please give me a call at 860-303-4766.
if you ever want to get together to hunt somewhere, just let me know! im always on the lookout for a hunting buddy! GL with the new Minelab... Im trying to save up for the Excal im only about half way there!
