Gold and diamond ring found in the sand at Curracloe beach, Wexford

Robyn was camping in Wexford and spent the Thursday afternoon on Curracloe beach. Somewhere on the sand, not far from the main beach entrance, her gold ring with diamonds came off.

They looked for it themselves and had no luck at all. That is normal on a beach like Curracloe. The sand is soft and deep, and a ring that drops while you are sitting, packing up or shaking out a towel slides under the surface almost at once. It can be a few centimetres from where you are kneeling and you will not see it.

Robyn messaged us that evening. The timing was tight, because they were leaving the next morning and lived a few hours away. She did have one very useful thing: a photo of where they had been sitting, with the area circled on it. You can see it below, the green ring drawn around a patch of open sand with the dunes and a yellow beach hut behind. On a long, open beach with few landmarks, a marked photo from the spot is worth more than any description.

The earliest our local detectorist could search was the Saturday, first thing in the morning, before the beach filled up. Robyn did not need to come back for it. If the ring turned up, it could be returned to her afterwards.

It turned up. By eight o’clock on the Saturday morning the ring was out of the sand, about a day and a half after it was lost, and the photo at the top was taken after it was back with her.

Two things helped here. Robyn knew roughly where they had been, near the entrance rather than somewhere along miles of beach, and she had a photo from the spot. Searching early also matters on a busy beach, before a day of feet and towels moves the sand around again.