For 15 years, James Whitfield has been strolling the beaches of Hampton Roads with headphones on and a metal detector in hand like a friendly treasure‑hunting guardian angel. On a recent Saturday, the 62-year-old civil engineer struck gold, literally.
Beach detector hobbyists like Whitfield regularly patrol the Virginia Beach shoreline. They’re often the difference between a tourist heading home smiling or leaving heartbroken over a lost valuable.
Tos and Bukola Ogunade started their day on the beach with family and friends around 24th Street in a joyous mood.
It soon turned into panic.
Bukola had accidentally dropped her husband’s diamond-studded, white gold anniversary ring in about two feet of water.
Bukola said her husband had given the ring to her for safekeeping just a few minutes before she joined her friends’ revelry in the ocean. She forgot she was holding the jewelry. She remembered too late.
Cue the frantic searching, the sinking feeling, and the “why did you take it into the water?” moment.
The Ogunades and their party of friends from their Richmond-area church, Redeemed Christian Church of God, joined in the search, futilely raking their fingers through the sand beneath the water for about 20 minutes.
“After a few minutes of the search, I gave up,” Tos said. “There was no way we were finding a ring at that depth.”
Enter Whitfield. He started his metal detecting hobby 15 years ago by searching farm fields in Hampton Roads for colonial and Civil War relics. His most surprising find, he said, was a soldier’s button from the US Revolutionary War.
Whitfield, a Chesapeake resident, is a building contractor by day and scans the oceanfront for a few hours every weekend. Two hours before low tide and one hour after, he said.
“You end up finding more at a low tide than you do at a high tide,” he said. “The waves carry the jewelry or coins or whatever it is, and it deposits it in the beach sand.”
On Saturday, Whitfield was wearing his signature yellow headphones, which block out beach chatter and amplify every promising beep, and making his usual rounds when the Ogunades hurried over to ask for help.
“The waves were breaking fairly hard on the beach, and the location where she lost it in the surf, the ocean usually moves items so far away that it's hard to find,” Whitfield told this reporter, who witnessed the events. “You have a great big search area.”
The water rose above his knees as he swept his detector over the surf.
A few beeps later and a scoop of sand, up came the ring. “Luckily, his ring was so heavy it went down and didn't go anywhere,” Whitfield said.
A crowd of dozens of onlookers and the Ogunades’ friends burst into cheers as they rushed to Whitfield with hugs and appreciation. It was a reaction usually reserved for dolphins, surprise proposals, or someone finally getting their umbrella to stay put in the sand.
“I was surprised by how many people celebrated,” Whitfield said later in an interview with VCIJ. “It is usually just the person who lost their jewelry ring and their spouse who get excited, but everybody was excited that day. It was really nice.”
Whitfield declined any payment or token of appreciation.
The Ogunades, Glen Allen, Va. residents who have been married for over 18 years, described the experience as a miracle.
“I bought the ring about 15 years ago for our wedding anniversary,” Tos, a real estate investor, said. “A few years ago, when I had it appraised, it was (worth) about $15,000.”
Days later, Whitfield was surprised when told the value of the ring: “I believe it is the most expensive thing I have ever found.”
Tos has learned a lesson. “I’m not wearing or taking the ring to the beach ever again,” he said. “Thankfully, we had a guardian angel with a metal detector.”
Reach Kunle Falayi at Kunle.Falayi@vcij.org.
