Engagement ring lost at bottom of Lake Windermere found by freediver in just 20 minutes

Armed with only a snorkel and a metal detector, 22-year-old recovers diamond ring from bottom of England’s largest lake

A 22-year-old freediver found the engagement ring of a woman who had lost it in Lake Windermere — England’s largest lake — in just 20 minutes on Monday.

With Angus Hosking’s help, the woman — who was identified as just Rebecca — found the white gold and diamond engagement ring that her fiance Vik had given her just three days beforehand.

Mr Hosking is a volunteer with Lake District Diving in Windermere in the Lake District. He helps remove litter from the lakes throughout the district and helps return items like phones, rings and cameras to tourists.

Rebecca had lost the ring while sitting on a jetty on the shores of Windermere next to the Langdale Chase hotel. The hotel got in touch with Mr Hosking, who headed urgently to the spot and dived in.

Windermere is England’s largest lake at 10.5 miles long and, according to the Visit Lake District website, is 219 feet at its deepest point.

Yet armed only with a metal detector, and the help of fellow freediver Declan Turner, Mr Hosking found the ring in just over 20 minutes.

Mr Hosking said he has been picking up litter from the water bodies around the Lake District for the last three-and-a-half years.

On Monday, he received a call at lunchtime about the lost engagement ring. “I came as soon as I finished my shift,” he says, explaining that “with something as light and small as a ring it’s time-sensitive”.

“Fortunately we had a rough idea of where it was,” he told BBC News. “If it had been in the middle of the lake it wouldn’t have been like a needle in a haystack, but a needle in the world.”

Mr Hosking said there some false alarms with coins and other scraps of metal, and as the search went on the couple started to look “disheartened”.

“But then I saw the glint underwater and so pretty much knew it was there. It didn’t shine like a coin, it shone like a diamond,” he said, adding that it was an “amazing” experience.

Pictures and videos of Mr Hosking’s successful mission were shared on the hotel’s Instagram page, including a picture of the diver handing over the ring to a grateful-looking Vik and Rebecca.

Mr Hosking is a watersports instructor who uses his freediving skills to help tourists and other visitors retrieve their lost possessions. He has also taught wakeboarding, water-skiing, kneeboarding and wake-surfing before he took up freediving a few years ago. In an interview with The Mail, Mr Hosking said that “one of our more historic finds was a drinks can dating back to the 1940s”.