Against all odds, a New Jersey man recovered his wedding ring this week after losing it as he pulled an anchor back on board the Lock-N-Load charter boat during a fishing trip.
“He always used to say he could anchor on a dime, except I won’t give him a dime because the ring is the size of a quarter. So I’ll give it to him that he can anchor on a quarter,” said Jay Bradford, 27, of Point Pleasant, N.J.
He and Barsa have been friends for a long time. When Bradford is not working on tug boats, he helps Barsa out on his charters.
The job requires working with his hands on tasks like cutting bait, filleting fish, untangling fishing lines and dropping anchors.
On Dec. 12, Barsa had some charter customers on the boat searching for blackfish, a bottom species that lives in rock crevices on the ocean floor. Barsa sent Bradford up to the bow several times to pick up the anchors so they could move to new grounds because the fish would not bite.
On the second to last stop of the day, Bradford’s wedding ring fell overboard when he was pulling the anchor in.
“My hand hit the bow rail and the ring came up off my knuckle. The ring slid off, hit the tow rail and went into the water,” Bradford said.
He watched as the ring gleamed and sunk to Davey Jones’ Locker like a feather falling in the air. It gave him a similar, sinking feeling in his stomach.
“He texted me and said his day was going wrong. I said, ‘Don’t worry. You will find the fish,’ ” said his wife, Meagan Bradford, 29. “He texted me back. ‘It’s not the fishing. I lost my ring in the water.’ I nearly threw up.”
Martha J. Weller,
