COSTA RICA — The new couple couldn’t have been more devastated as they left the sandy Costa Rican beach where they had recently become engaged. They still can’t believe how they managed to be reunited with an item as valuable as it is meaningful.
Just days before, Doug Cotty popped the question to girlfriend Michele Arias. Of course she couldn’t say no when Doug offered her a one-carat diamond that had been in his family for generations. He had even had the stone set in an ornate band that he had custom-made.
The happy couple spent the rest of their time in Costa Rica as any tourist would, enjoying the nature and wildlife that country is famous for. It was at Playa Chamán in Uvita, Puntarenas that things went terribly wrong.
While out on the beach, Doug and Michele noticed that a group of tourists had spotted some ridley sea turtles nesting nearby in the sand. Wanting to catch a glimpse of the turtles herself, Michele quickly put on some sunscreen. She removed her new jewelry and placed it in the front pocket of Doug’s tank top, patting him on the chest as if to remind him “my ring’s in here”. The reminder didn’t help.
It wasn’t long before Doug was rushing to apply his own sun tan lotion. In the process, he took off his tank top and slung it over the branch of a nearby tree. Just like that, the priceless family heirloom left his pocket and tumbled to the sand. It only took about half an hour for the couple to realize the ring had gone missing. It took an hour of searching for the couple to accept that someone had likely spotted the ring and walked off with it. The next day, the couple flew back to their home in the United States. They were still in a state of shock about the lost ring.
Upon returning to the States, the Michele posted a message to a Facebook group for residents of southwestern Costa Rica. She knew it was a long shot, but she begged the members of the group to contact her if the ring somehow turned up.
Almost two weeks later, American ex-pat David Harris sent Michele a message: “I found your ring.” The 67-year-old Harris had been known to find things. He had previous experience with water searches and metal detectors as a member of a dive rescue team.
David responded quickly to Michele via private message, but after hearing nothing from her for several days he assumed that the ring had already been found. As the days passed, he returned almost daily to the same beach where the ring was lost. He watched as storms pelted the beach with rain and vacationers left a seemingly infinite number of footprints in the sand.
It took another several weeks for Michele to see David’s message. It landed in a special inbox for messages sent to you by people that have not been added as friends. At this point, Michele thanked David and told him that he was welcome to look, but didn’t expect to find the ring after so much time had passed.
At this point, Doug and Michele had already purchased another ring online. They had found a new diamond and were waiting on it to arrive so that Michele could once again have a beautiful engagement ring. Little did Michele know that she was ten days away from the surprise of a lifetime.
David Harris woke up that morning and suddenly felt very strongly that he should go search the beach for the lost ring. He grabbed his metal detector and headed straight for the place that Michele described. It took less than twenty minutes for David’s metal detector to let him know that he had found something that was at the very least unusual.
David started to dig. He dug and dug, down almost a foot deep. Then is metal detector started going crazy. He looked closely into the hole and saw the sun glimmering off a ring standing straight up in the sand. He could hardly believe his eyes!
It didn’t take long for David to get to the car. He was so excited to message Michele about finding the ring!
At first, Michele thought David was playing some sort of joke. It just wasn’t possible for David to have found the ring, or was it? Once the picture of the ring showed up on her phone, Michele smiled about as big as she did on the day that Doug proposed.
Doug and Michele offered to pay David for his time, but he refused. In his mind, he was simply reuniting the ring with its rightful owner. Helping this couple recover something so important to them was payment enough.
As for the replacement ring, the couple is very thankful for their jeweler’s thirty-day return policy.
