It was a calm, sunny morning in October when Alex Davis went diving off the southern coast of Barbados with his metal detector, as he does a few times a month. Often, he finds bottle caps and rusty nails underneath the sand and coral layers.
This time, after Mr. Davis kicked his legs, dipped his head into the turquoise ocean and reached the sea floor, he heard a low beep: the distinct sound of the device finding gold.
“I pull back two more large rocks,” Mr. Davis, 34, who is originally from the United Kingdom and works as a free diving and spearfishing instructor in Barbados, recalled. “And as I pull back the third one, and the sand settles, almost immediately I see the band of the ring poking out of the sand.”
What Mr. Davis found was a gold graduation ring lost in the ocean almost 50 years ago, emblazoned with the year 1965, “McMaster University,” and the eagle from the Canadian university’s coat of arms. A polished, maroon stone that matched the school’s colors — probably a garnet — was embedded in the center.
“I kind of had that moment like Sméagol from ‘The Lord of the Rings,’” he said, imitating the voice that J.R.R. Tolkien’s character made when he held the One Ring as he became Gollum.
When he returned home, Mr. Davis examined the ring further and noticed that inside the band were three letters: FMP. Believing this to be the owner’s initials, Mr. Davis contacted the school’s alumni association.
His request reached Karen McQuigge, the director of alumni engagement at McMaster University, who went into the alumni database. She quickly found an alumnus who graduated in 1965 named Frederick Morgan Perigo and gave Mr. Davis the email on file for Mr. Perigo.
Mr. Perigo, who did not respond to an interview request, told Mr. Davis and The Hamilton Spectator that he had lost the ring on vacation and assumed it to be gone forever.
While in Barbados in 1975, Mr. Perigo was playing with his young son on the beach when a wave knocked the child down, according to The Spectator, which covers Hamilton, Ontario. As he helped his son up, Mr. Perigo said, his ring slipped off and was lost to the ocean. The family searched the beach to no avail.
Then, 49 years later, on Oct. 22, the day before Mr. Perigo turned 83, a box arrived at his home in Burlington, Ontario, containing his long-lost possession. Mr. Davis had arranged the return.
“The sea gives and the sea takes,” Mr. Davis said in a phone interview. He added that giving the ring back to its rightful owner was a no-brainer: “I never felt like it was my ring.”
The ring was in near-perfect condition, with almost no corrosion, and the central stone was unblemished.
“It was a shock,” Mr. Perigo told The Spectator. “It was the most miraculous 83rd birthday present I could ever have.”
The morning after he found Mr. Perigo’s ring, Mr. Davis headed back into the ocean with his metal detector in hand. He found nothing of note; mostly more bottle caps and rusty nails. But somewhere off the coast of Barbados, another long lost treasure is waiting to be discovered.
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