A snorkeler has found a groom’s missing £550 wedding ring after she spotted the piece of jewellery around the neck of a fish.
Suzie Quintal and her husband Nathan Reeves were visiting Norfolk Island in Australia to see family over the Christmas period.
But as Ms Reeves went for a swim she suddenly noticed Nathan’s ring had fallen off.
Five months later Susan Prior, a freelance writer who posts about marine life on her blog norfolkislandreef.com.au, was astonished when she spotted the missing ring around the body of a mullet fish.
She had heard the couple had lost their wedding band earlier this year and was able to track them down on a community social media page.
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(Image: Susan Prior / www.norfolkislandreef.com.au)
Ms Prior is concerned about the wider environmental issue of plastic in our oceans and described the sight of the fish trapped in the ring was ‘gut-wrenching’.
She stressed the importance of people snipping plastic rings so fish can’t get caught in them so easily.
In her blog norfolkislandreef.com.au she wrote: “The problem of rubbish disposal is an on-going one and one that is being given serious consideration by our local government. Finding the right solution is not always straightforward, easy or cheap.
“It was gut-wrenching to see a couple of sand mullet, Myxus elongatus, wearing plastic collars – those rings found on plastic juice and milk bottles.
“Sometimes these rings escape into the wild, and this is the sad consequence.”
(Image: Susan Prior / www.norfolkislandreef.com.au)
Mullet she said, snuffle through the sand looking for food making it so easy for a ring or hair tie to flip over their noses and get stuck.
She was astonished to see another fish, this time weighed down with a metal ring as “truly worrying”.
She added: “I saw another mullet with a ring collar, but this one looked a shiny metallic gold, with a lot less algal growth compared to the plastic ones.
“I recalled that someone had posted on our local community social media pages about a large man’s wedding ring that had gone missing in the bay earlier this year, so I decided to see if I could find the possible owner.
“It didn’t take long for my suspicion to be confirmed; we now have a poor mullet weighed down with someone’s (expensive) gold wedding ring.”
The metal could only be removed by catching the fish in a net and carefully removing it.
(Image: Susan Prior / www.norfolkislandreef.com.au)
She said: “People are now trying to source nets, some have got scuba gear. The team in the glass bottom boats are going to have a look – Norfolk’s really good like that.’
Ms Qunital, who lives with her partner in the Gold Coast, Australia, said she just ‘spun out’ after hearing Ms Prior had found the ring five months later.
“I just couldn’t believe it. I’ve got a few friends on the island and they’re pretty adamant that they’ll find it,” she told Daily Mail Australia.
“It doesn’t worry my husband, he doesn’t understand all the fuss. I’m just worried about the poor little fish.'”
Ms Quintal said her husband searched high and low for the missing jewellery but had not been able to find it.
She : “He tried to look for it and then broke the news to me and I was not happy.”
