WHITE ROCK — With the sound of a clink, Jordan Remple’s heart sank.
The 25-year-old Langley man had the perfect marriage proposal planned for girlfriend Jodi Hodge, 22, on the pier in White Rock on Sunday evening.
But his palms were sweating. And when the nervous Remple reached into his pocket to retrieve the engagement ring, which he’d removed from its box to avoid detection, the ring slipped through his fingers, through the pier’s boards and landed in the sea.
“I hear this clink,” said Remple, recalling the mortifying moment. “I just sat there for a second in disbelief.”
Tears filled his eyes as the nearly speechless Remple tried to tell his girlfriend of two years that her engagement ring had fallen into the water, ruining the surprise proposal.
Hodge immediately consoled him, assuring Remple that it was just an accident.
“I was devastated,” he said. “But I wasn’t going to let it go.”
Once composed, Remple tried to think of how he could retrieve the $3,000 ring.
The couple went to Walmart that night and bought a pair of goggles, a towel and an underwater flashlight. But the water was too cold to go in without proper gear.
He decided to call friend Mitchell Hicks, who is a scuba diver. But Hicks didn’t have air tanks and wasn’t able to stay underwater long enough to spot the diamond.
On Monday, Remple and Hodge returned to the pier when the tide was low to continue scouring the breakwater, even using a metal detector to help in the search.
When they still couldn’t find the ring, panic started to set in.
“I had to give it one more shot,” he said. “I had to give it everything I had.”
Then he remembered that his best friend’s father, Robert MacDonald, works as a port inspection diver for the Canadian Forces.
When MacDonald, who is also captain of New Westminster’s fire department, heard from Remple, he said he didn’t hesitate to gather his scuba gear and head to the pier.
But in the murky water Tuesday afternoon, MacDonald could barely see a foot ahead of him.
Finally, after 45 minutes of searching, he spotted the sizable sparkler resting on a rock about 15 feet from where it fell.
“As soon as he passed me the ring, I held onto it for dear life, turned around, got on one knee and asked Jodi to marry me,” said Remple.
Before he could get the words out, Hodge accepted with a tearful “yes,” quickly hugging her fiancé.
“I didn’t even give him a chance to finish,” she said with a laugh.
With the ring securely on her finger, Hodge asked Remple to put her hand in her pocket and run to the shore — just to be safe.
