My husband lost his wedding ring on our honeymoon. I paid a guy with a metal detector $200 to look for it.

• Up to 40% of men admit to losing their rings. My husband was one of them.
• To help travelers like us find lost jewelry, people-for-hire scour beaches with metal detectors.
• We found Antigua’s very own treasure hunter through Facebook.

He said his latest detector, a Garrett Sea Hunter Mark II, cost him $800, and a pair of new headphones set him back $140.

He used my own ring to make sure he was on the right frequency for gold, adjusting the knobs as he floated the sensor over my hand. Then, he set off, scanning the beach.

Soon, he was knee deep in the bluest water I’d ever seen. Whenever his sensor beeped in his ears, he’d scoop a pile of sand from the ocean floor and sift it with a second contraption that resembled a pasta colander, but was cylinder-shaped.

He unearthed a quarter. “I’ll keep that,” he cracked. Then a matchbox car. Then one aluminum can lid after another. All of it went deep in his pocket so he wouldn’t come across it again.

At one point, he was neck deep in water, and I was beginning to lose hope.

Striking gold

An hour and a half later, I sat 15 feet from the water’s edge contemplating how we’d afford a new ring when Winston calmly sauntered up.

He held out the pasta-collander tool and said, “You better go surprise him.” I peered inside, and there lay a golden ring. Eyes wide, I screamed an expletive.

“Go put it in a shell or something,” Winston smiled knowingly. Clearly, he’d done this before.

I ran up the beach, grabbed a shell, and tucked it and the ring inside my palm. I bolted up to my husband and said, “Look at this pretty shell I found.” Unfolding my hand, I revealed the ring. Another expletive. My husband’s eyes were gleaming.

The pair of us bounced around, cackling to anyone who’d listen, “Winston found it! In the ocean of all places!”

Collectively, that ring spent more hours in the ocean than I did on my honeymoon.

Winston didn’t seem surprised at his success. He estimates his find rate is 95%. Sometimes he ditches the metal detector and searches with his hand by feel. He puts so much effort into his hunts because he knows the feeling of losing something special, he told me.

“It’s not just a ring. A lot of memories flash through your head when you lose it,” he said. “That joy from your vacation gets pushed back, and you leave bitter. I make somebody happy again.”

It seemed fitting that my husband was wearing a Pittsburgh Pirates hat. We’d been searching for lost treasure with Winston, who’d struck gold.