Diver finds and returns graduation ring lost for decades in the ocean

Alex Davis was about to surface from his dive on a Barbados beach in mid-October when his metal detector started beeping. There was something buried under the ocean floor. Davis dug through rocks and chunks of dead coral until he found it: a golden ring with a dark red gemstone poking out of the sand.

When Davis brought it to shore, he saw that the ring was engraved with the name of McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, the year 1965 and a set of initials. Davis had unearthed a decades-old graduation ring, with clues to its owner.

“It just felt almost like my duty to try and get it back,” he told The Washington Post.

Davis, 34, looked through McMaster’s website but couldn’t find a match for the ring’s initials. Then he contacted the university, whose staff determined the initials matched those of Morgan Perigo, an alumnus who later told them he had lost his graduation ring in the ocean off Barbados in 1977.

Davis shipped the ring, serendipitously rescued after decades, to Perigo in Ontario in late October. The ring arrived a day before Perigo’s 83rd birthday.

“What a wonderful unexpected 83rd birthday present,” Perigo told McMaster University, which announced the discovery Friday.

Davis, a professional free diver and spear fisherman who runs a free diving company on Barbados, purchased an underwater metal detector this year, he said. It felt timely; Hurricane Beryl churned up the coast of Barbados in July and exposed long-buried trinkets in the sand, Davis said. At various sites, he has found bottle caps, lead weights and even phones.

On the morning of Oct. 16, Davis was searching the shores of Miami Beach, a popular tourist destination, when his detector led him to the ring. It was buried not far from the coast, in water around six feet deep, and it glistened in the sunlight.

“Your eyes definitely light up,” Davis recalled. “You’re pulling up rusty nails and rusty bottle caps and stuff, and then you finally find something actually shiny.”

Davis said when he has found valuable items in the past, he has usually searched the beach or social media for the owners. But most discoveries carry little information that can link them to the person who lost them. This one was different.

“My first thought was, ‘I wonder if, if this person is still around to get it back,’” Davis said.

After Davis contacted McMaster University with news of his odd discovery, Karen McQuigge, the school’s director of alumni engagement, said the university doesn’t issue graduation rings and that the ring was likely a sentimental purchase. By a stroke of luck, there was just one alumnus from the class of 1965 who had the ring’s initials of “FMP.”

McQuigge’s team contacted Frederick Morgan Perigo, who goes by Morgan. Perigo replied and confirmed that on a family trip to Barbados in 1977, he’d lost a graduation ring on the same beach where Davis made the discovery. The ring had slipped off his finger and into the ocean when he reached out to steady his son as a wave hit the beach.

“He thought it was lost forever,” McQuigge said.

Davis said he was stunned to learn of the ring’s history.

“The ring’s been lost quite some time, longer than I’ve been on this planet,” the diver said.

McQuigge connected Davis and Perigo, who shared his surprise and his address. Davis paid for 48-hour shipping to get the ring from Barbados to Canada as quickly as possible. It arrived on Oct. 22, a day before Perigo turned 83.

Davis said he called Perigo again on his birthday to wish him well. The thrill of solving a decades-old mystery, he said, far outweighed the value of the golden ring, had he kept it.

“I think the warm, fuzzy feels are worth a lot more,” he said.