Diamond wedding ring found with a metal detector at Praia da Falésia after two nights

It was a Saturday evening at the end of September, around six, on the Rocha Baixinha end of Praia da Falésia, the long golden beach between Vilamoura and Albufeira. Andrea had taken off her diamond wedding ring and put it down beside her, on her towel. When it was time to go, they stood up, gave the towel a good shake to get the sand off, and walked away. The ring went with the sand.

By the time she realised, it was getting dark. They searched for an hour themselves and found nothing. That night she sent us a message. The next problem was obvious: they were flying home at midday the next day.

She did everything we could have asked. Before she left, she took photos from where they had been sitting, with the beach restaurant in the background, and drew a circle on them where the towel had been. She sent a map pin and a photo of the ring, a slim wedding ring set with a row of small diamonds. Then she flew home, not knowing if she would ever see it again. She did not need to be there for the search: if the ring turned up, we would post it to her.

Our local detectorist arrived after midnight, when the beach was empty. He compared her photos with what he could see under his torch, lined up the restaurant and the parasols, and started working through the marked area with his metal detector in slow, overlapping lines. Nearly four hours later he had found a ring, but when he sent her the photo, it was not hers. Somebody else’s lost ring, not the one we were looking for.

The next morning he asked if she was sure of the spot. She was, completely. The ring had been on the towel, she had not moved from it, and it could only have gone when the towel was shaken. So he went back.

On the second night, a little after eleven, a message arrived: could she send a photo of her ring? Then, a few minutes later: “Do you still want it back?” Then a short video from the beach. A torch on the sand, the metal detector, fingers digging, and a small wedding ring with a row of diamonds coming up out of the sand.

“Oh my God,” she wrote, followed by more hearts than we could count. “I was already losing hope. You are incredible. I am jumping for joy.” Later that night she went looking for a wedding photo to show us the ring, and found the one here: two hands, and the diamond wedding ring sitting next to her engagement ring.

Andrea is back home, so the ring is on its way to her by post. We will update this story when it arrives.

Two things made this possible. Andrea marked the spot properly before she left, with a landmark in the photo, and she was certain about what had happened. And our detectorist did not give up after the first long night. Dry sand hides a light ring very well, and without a metal detector you would never see it, especially near the top of a busy beach where it gets walked over and raked, but it does not carry it far. If you lose a ring on the Algarve and have to leave, you do not need to stay for the search. Send us the same things she did, and do not assume it is gone.