A metal detectorist has reunited a man with a diamond wedding ring that he'd lost on a beach.
Stephane Seguin, 40, lost his $1,200 ring while swimming with his kids on a trip to St. Augustine, Florida.
He saw detectorist Joseph Cook, 38, out searching the sands and asked him to keep an eye out for his ring.
Determined, Mr. Cook returned to the spot every day for over a month and eventually found the gold ring.
Mr. Seguin and his significant other, Marie-Eve, 43, traveled 1,600 miles to collect the ring and personally thank Mr. Cook.
“When I lost the ring in the sea, it felt like falling in a dream,” said Mr. Seguin, a tinsmith from Quebec City, Canada.
“We spent every day looking, and then we eventually saw Mr. Cook on the beach.
“I said to Marie-Eve, ‘I’m not going to tell him where it is as he’ll look for it and keep it!’
“But she went up to him, and he told us if he finds it, he'd return it.
“We left the following week, and he still hadn’t found the ring, unfortunately.
“But when I saw the video of him finding the ring, I knew it was the ring before he even closed up on it—it was amazing.”
“They were the most humble people I’ve ever met, out of all the returns I’ve ever done,” said Mr. Cook, a detectorist and content creator from St. Augustine.
“They told me their whole story—her dad had passed away at 50, and October has always been a bad month for them, and they said they wanted a new chapter in their lives and a positive story for October.
“They thanked me a million times and said October is a happy month in their life from now on. That’s why I do it.
“Being on the beach and having that solitude and being by myself and in the nice weather all day, you can’t complain a whole lot.
“But for me, it’s giving stuff back to the people—a $10 item to somebody could be worth $10,000 in their mind.”
Mr. Cook, who uploads all his finds to his YouTube channel, had been in the middle of recording a video when the couple approached him.
“They came up to me asking if I'd found a ring today, and I said hadn’t but I asked to exchange numbers,” he said.
“They didn’t have their phones on them, so I told them to follow me on my socials and if I found it, I'd return it.
“I went back to that place every single day for a month and a half, but I assumed someone else had found that ring and decided to keep it.
“I decided to try one more time, and I wasn’t there for more than four minutes and ‘beep beep beep,’ and I knew it was theirs.”
Just like any other find, Mr. Cook posted it to his social media channels and hoped the couple would see it.
Back in Canada, the couple had been watching the videos in the hope of spotting the ring.
“I didn’t know why, but I found the videos really entertaining,” Mr. Seguin said. “I was sure it was going to turn up.”
Within 24 hours of uploading the video, Mr. Cook had received a message on Instagram from the couple.
“As soon as I woke up, they‘d messaged me in shock, and they couldn’t believe I’d found it,” he said. “I didn’t expect them to see it that quickly.
“Marie-Eve sent me a picture of him wearing the ring to prove it was them as well.”
The couple then decided to undertake the mammoth 1,600-mile, 26-hour journey to retrieve the ring and thank Mr. Cook in person.
“Even though I said not to give me anything, they made me some gift baskets, gave me my own ring, and took me out for dinner,” Mr. Cook said.
“The hamper had all sorts of things from Quebec and a coffee mug that said ‘help others,’ it was pretty cool.”
Mr. Seguin said, “I felt it deserved something more than being sent in the mail. I didn’t want it to get lost again either.”
Marie-Eve said, “He’s so nice, he’s fun and authentic and I think he thought we were special.”
