A bride-to-be is to be reunited with a lost engagement ring she was supposed to get in a romantic underwater proposal after a swimmer found it floating in the sea.
The ring – tied to a plastic flower – was meant to be the highlight of a scuba diving session her boyfriend had organised off the coast of the town of Javea, Spain.
But during the 10-metre (33-foot) deep dive in May the nervous groom-to-be – named only as Daniel in local media, from the city of Valencia, Spain – lost the ring and had to abandon the stunt.
Astonishingly the ring – still tied to its flower – was found three months later when Belgian holidaymaker Ann Van Campfort noticed it floating in Portitxol Bay.
Ann – from Kapellen, Antwerp province – said she and her in-laws had taken a boat trip on 5th August when they stopped for a swim.
But while they were 300 metres (984 feet) out to sea, she saw something bobbing in the waves.
She said: “I jumped in and swam over to it. I fished it out and saw that it was a plastic rose.
“When I took a closer look at the rose on the boat, I saw that it was attached to a box. I opened it and it contained an engagement ring.
“It had a Spanish message: ‘Quieres casarte conmigo?’ (‘Will you marry me?’)”
She continued: “As you can see in the photos, there is a string hanging from the rose and it really looks like this string has been snapped or got caught in something.
“We believe the piece of string was attached to a boat or a jet ski and somehow broke.
Suspecting that the rose had not been in the water very long, she added: “Everything still looks pretty good.”
Ann turned to social media to track down the ring’s owner and was astonished when she was approached by delighted Daniel and his bride-to-be Santene.
French national Santene said: “I immediately recognised my partner’s handwriting and the rose he had bought for me.”
She explained that the ring was supposed to be a token and her partner had later bought her the real thing but it still holds tremendous emotional value for her.
Santene said: “It wasn’t that expensive, it was a ‘fake’ ring that Daniel bought just to be sure.
“I own the real engagement ring.”
Ann added: “Santene had sent me a message and I let her know that she can contact me.”
