A Rhode Island woman found a pearl in a clam she was served at a restaurant and it ended up becoming her engagement ring. Sandy Sikorski and Ken Steinkamp said they were dining at The Bridge Restaurant and Raw Bar in downtown Westerly, with Sikorski’s brother and his wife in December 2021, when Sikorski ate the last of the quahog clams.
“That’s when I tasted this big round thing in my mouth. I’m thinking, ‘What the heck is this?’ So, I take it and spit it down on the table, in my hand, and my sister-in-law says, ‘Is that a tooth?'”
Sikorski’s sister-in-law, a jewelry enthusiast, soon surmised [that] the object was a 9.8 millimeter pearl. Marc Fishbone of Black Orchid Jewelers examined the object and confirmed the suspicions.
“He said it is called a Mercenaria pearl, which is a mollusk type of little animal, which makes what looks like a little pearl. It’s made out of the same material, calcite, and another mineral […]. [It] takes years and years to grow,” Sikorski said. “He said the weight of this and the size of this, [it} probably [took] 50 years to make.”
Sikorski and Steinkamp agreed that, if they ever decided to get married, they would have the pearl made into an engagement ring. That plan came to pass when Steinkamp proposed July 8, using a ring Fishbone had fashioned with the pearl as its stone. The couple celebrated their engagement by returning to the restaurant […].
A Westerly woman feels like the luckiest girl in the world for two reasons. For the past four years, Sandy Sikorski and Ken Steinkamp have been regulars at The Bridge Restaurant and Raw Bar in downtown Westerly. For years, the restaurant, which looks over the Pawcatuck River, has offered deals on seafood.
“We come here often to get the clams,” said Sikorski. “They’re bigger, they come on platters, upraised, they have great horseradish and everything I love about it…they taste delicious.”
There was one [clam] left.
“What are the odds of a pearl being inside of this shell?” said Sikorski.
The perfectly shaped oval had been hiding in the meat of the clam. Sikorski held on to the […] pearl and became curious about it. First, she brought it to The Compass Rose in Westerly. The owner there took a look and referred her to their jewelry maker, Marc Fishbone, of Black Orchid Jewelers.
“Wow, you got a beauty there. It’s heavy,” stated Fishbone. “It’s probably one in a million, one in a million to have it perfect […]. [U]sually, there’s pieces of them missing and it looks like a tooth or something […]. [I]t is never like a whole, perfect little oval. Plus, it’s big.”
According to several online articles, the odds of finding one in a clam are about one in 100,000.
They wanted Fishbone to make the setting.
“[I] want it to be the most beautiful setting you’ve ever made and I like gold,” said Sikorski. “I didn’t want a hole in the bottom of the stone, I just wanted it secured.”
Steinkamp, who asked Sikorski’s dad for approval first, got down on one knee and popped the question with the beautiful ring in hand.
“[W]e’re not getting any younger and we felt, in a way, that this was kind of a signal or an odd bit of synchronicity,” said Sikorski. “It’s beautiful. It has diamonds, and a sparkle, and I know minerals are becoming more fashionable gemstones vs. a big diamond thing.”
She hopes to eventually pass the ring off to her 8-year-old granddaughter, Nora.
The Battle of Largs was an indecisive engagement between the kingdoms of Norway and Scotland, on the Firth of Clyde near Largs, Scotland. The conflict formed part of the Norwegian expedition against Scotland in 1263, in which Haakon Haakonsson, King of Norway, attempted to reassert Norwegian sovereignty over the western seaboard of Scotland. Since the beginning of the 12th century, this region had lain within the Norwegian realm, ruled by magnates who recognised the overlordship of the Kings of Norway. In the mid-13th century, two Scottish kings, Alexander II and his son, Alexander III, attempted to incorporate the region into their own realm. Following failed attempts to purchase the islands from the Norwegian king, the Scots launched military operations. Haakon responded to the Scottish aggression by leading a massive fleet from Norway, which reached the Hebrides in the summer of 1263. By the end of September, Haakon’s fleet occupied the Firth of Clyde, and when negotiations between the kingdoms broke down, he brought the bulk of his fleet to anchor off The Cumbraes.
On the night of September 30, during a bout of stormy weather, several Norwegian vessels were driven aground on the Ayrshire coast, near present-day Largs. On October 2 , while the Norwegians were salvaging their vessels, the main Scottish army arrived on the scene. Composed of infantry and cavalry, the Scottish force was commanded by Alexander of Dundonald, Steward of Scotland. The Norwegians were gathered in two groups:
the larger main force on the beach and a small contingent atop a nearby mound.
The advance of the Scots threatened to divide the Norwegian forces, so the contingent on the mound ran to rejoin their comrades on the beach below. Seeing them running from the mound, the Norwegians on the beach believed they were retreating, and fled back towards the ships. There was fierce fighting on the beach, and the Scots took up a position on the mound formerly held by the Norwegians. Late in the day, after several hours of skirmishing, the Norwegians recaptured the mound. The Scots withdrew from the scene and the Norwegians re-boarded their ships. They returned the next morning to collect their dead. With the weather deteriorating, Haakon’s fleet sailed to Orkney to overwinter.
The Battle of Largs has been romanticised by [some] later historians as a great Scottish victory but, it only involved a small part of the Norwegian fleet. [Another] saga described the Norwegian campaign as a triumph [but], in reality, it had not achieved anything […]. With his fleet and forces intact, Haakon planned to continue to campaign after spending the winter in Orkney but, he was unexpectedly taken ill and, died there before he had the chance to resume operations. The campaign had started too late and the Scottish king had successfully prolonged negotiations to his own advantage. With Haakon’s death, his successor, Magnus Haakonarson, King of Norway, signed the Treaty of Perth three years after the battle (July 2, 1266), leasing Scotland’s western seaboard to Alexander III in return for a yearly payment. This lease became permanent but, the Kingdom of Scotland eventually stopped paying the Norwegian crown for the islands when Norway became distracted by civil wars.
