Oct. 5 (UPI) — A wedding ring lost while cliff diving in Hawaii was returned to its owner thanks to another cliff diver and the power of social media.
Lexi and CJ Jorden-Ames said they did a cliff side photo shoot with photographer Jamie Ronning on Hawaii Island last year to celebrate their first wedding anniversary, and they took a 30-foot dive from the cliff to get some special photos.
CJ said the ring still was on his finger when he hit the water, but he felt it come off while climbing on the lava rocks.
“I reached up on the rock and it literally felt like somebody pulled it right off my finger,” he told KHON-TV.
The couple said they searched for the ring for more than a month, and even attempted using a metal detector, but they couldn’t find any trace of the lost wedding band.
Big Island resident Ryan Priest said he was cliff diving months later in the same location when he made an unusual discovery.
“Just a normal day in the ocean and I decided to jump one of the cliffs down there,” Priest said. “When I was climbing out of the ocean I noticed that there was a ring in the lava rocks.”
Priest and his wife, Corinne, posted about the ring on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, but nearly a year went by without any leads about the ring’s owner.
Ronning said she installed TikTok for the first time last week, and found herself perusing videos on the page for Aloha Zoe photography, the company owned by the Priests. She ended up spotting the video featuring CJ’s lost ring.
“I thought there’s no possible way that this could be the ring. Sure enough, I reached out,” Ronning said.
Ronning contacted Lexi, who then contacted the Priests to orchestrate a surprise for her husband during a trip to the beach.
“We looked at a photo of them so we knew what they looked like,” Ryan Priest said. “When we saw them walking along the beach I started to get my phone out. I started to take selfies of Corinne and I.
“After taking some selfies they were walking past, and I go excuse me I’m really bad at taking selfies do you mind taking a photo of us at this beautiful ocean?”
After CJ snapped a few photos, Priest told him he had dropped something and picked up a handful of sand — containing the lost ring.
“Honestly it just worked out perfect. Some Hawaii-style perfect aloha,” Ronning said.