BOSTON -- A New England Aquarium diver returned a man's lost wedding ring he found in the aquarium's four-story, 200,000-gallon giant ocean tank -- more than three months after it was lost.

Diver Returns Lost Wedding Ring

In early July, Bob Pirrmann, a guest diver, lost his wedding ring while petting a 560-pound sea turtle named Myrtle. Pirrmann was enjoying a rare public dive in the aquarium's Caribbean coral reef exhibit, which is filled with giant sea turtles, large sharks, electric green moray eels and more than 700 other marine creatures.

Pirrmann initially assumed his ring was lost forever. Aquarium assistant curator Dan Laughlin notified the aquarium's divers about the missing silver band and thought it might be found during routine cleaning procedures. Three months passed, and Pirrmann purchased another ring.

Mike Whyte, a part-time diver for the aquarium since 2001, was vacuuming food debris from several inches of sand near the bottom of the tank on Sunday. As he worked through some delicate finger corals, he noticed an unusual shape. Divers are used to finding shark teeth or even items sometimes dropped by visitors, such as baby pacifiers.

Whyte first thought the round object was a coin. Upon closer inspection, he said that he realized it was a ring and noted the irony that the cherished wedding band had settled among the finger corals.

"I was vacuuming in between, of all things, finger coral, and I noticed a round shape. At first, I thought it was a quarter. But, as I put it down a second time -- instantly -- it came to my mind, 'I know what this is!'" Whyte said.

Whyte returned the lost wedding band to Pirrmann on Thursday. They dove together, and Whyte showed Pirrmann the three-month resting space for the band.

"However long I live, it's going to stay on my finger," Pirrmann said.