Search and Recovery Ka-ching!

[Guba]

Good case for a lift bag...
Some friends and I were checking out a slope in a popular party spot on a local lake. One friend found a good dive knive, another a rod and reel. I was feeling unlucky when I spotted a length of rope. I started reeling it in and after about 40 feet of line found its attached anchor. So now, how to retrieve the anchor...well, I wrapped the line around it, got a good hold, and inflated my BC to compensate (I know, I know...but I was fairly new). I towed the anchor around for a while and at one point shifted it to my other hand. I knew if I dropped that thing, I would rocket to the surface like a Polaris missile, so I was especially careful. Well, a loop of rope had come loose and trailed behind me. I paused and re-coiled the rope, but it seemed to be hung on my tank. With a jerk I attempted to clear the line.
Only it wasn't hung on my tank...it was snarled on my rear dump valve release! With a burble of air, my BC emptied and I crashed to the bottom, about 6 feet down, in a cloud of silt. I could hear my partners laughing through their second stages.
I said to heck with this and pulled out my sausage, tied it to the line and shot it. We gathered the anchor later with the boat. I just gotta get me a lift bag one of these days.

 

[diverdowndh]

I'm jealous... all my kah-ching goes the other way - right outta my pocket into some dive outfit's! Ha! Sorry, read these thinking man, i wish I could have money coming IN instead of OUT.

 

[TheWetRookie]

At the end of a dive my duddy and I found a dive mask at about 25'. I pulled it over my arm up to my shoulder and we started our accent. The top 20' was only about 1' vis. When we got to the surface the mask was not on my arm. I don't think this one was meant to be found.

 

[Cave Diver]

Several years ago, I was hanging out at my LDS when a guy came in looking for a commercial diver. Turns out that his house had been burglarized and the theif fled out the back and tossed a pillowcase full of loot into the canal that ran behind the house.

The pillowcase contained a nintendo system, several games, some jewelry belonging to his wife with sentimental value and an old revolver that was his grandfathers.

Not knowing anything about that canal, I was a bit hesitant, but I went anyway. After gearing up and getting into ZERO vis water, it turned out to be only about 4' deep. Since the canal was only about 15-20' wide, I did a search pattern from bank to bank on my knees and after about a half hour I felt the pillowcase. It was tumped over with air trapped in the closed end and the nintendo sitting on the mouth of the bag.

Carefully feeling all around the bag I determined that the jewelry was still inside, along with the nintendo. The games themselves were scattered all over, but I recovered them all.

The husband was very grateful and they gave me a check for $250 even though I didnt find the revolver after another half hour of searching.

I felt bad about not finding the gun, so I borrwed a metal detector from the dive shop a couple of weeks later and found the gun right against the bank. The guy was pretty happy to get all of his stuff back, and the punk that stole it got jail time!

 

[SmokinReefer]

Not a diving story but a cool one.

I was fishing with a buddy and he casts out and gets snagged. Yanks around on it an loses his lure. He whines about it being his favorite. He ties on a new one and casts out and gets snagged again. Now he's really cussing. Finally frees the snag and reels in to find he has hooked the original lure.

Not sure of the odds, but it must be approaching infinity to 1.

I was on my dad's boat fishing with a bunch of drunks a few years ago. We were fishing in about 50ft of water in the Delaware bay. A big fish came along and snatched the pole out of the hand of the guy next to me. We all laughed, except my brother. He got a monster bite and hooked it up. He ended up reeling in the guy's pole, hooked through one of the guides. And to add insult....my brother then reeled in the fish still on the guy's line. We suggested my brother keep the fish AND the pole, but he has more tolerance for drunks......He kept the fish.

 

[ClevelandDiver]

No money was paid, but I did get to bust my older brother's chops. He was walking his bike across a creek where the bridge was out and never made it as the creek went from 2 feet deep to 5 feet deep in one step and then quickly over his head. There was a bit of current and he had to ditch the bike. Along with his wallet and keys in the pouch under the seat.

I heard the story of his loss and offered to try and recover it for him the next day.

The dive site was a creek roughly 50 feet wide and 7 feet deep in the middle. Viz was about 12 - 24 inches.

While we were assessing the situation, some other bikers approached and began discussing whether or not they should cross. They were very dismissive of our warnings until they realized we were not kidding as I came back from the car with a tank on my back. I offered to recover their bikes at a mere $100 a piece if they didn't make it. They choose a different route.

Seeing that bike appear out of the murky water was like discovering a virgin wreck the "S.S Mongoose". It is one of my fondest diving memories. The fact that I got to raz my brother and tell the much longer version of the story to my family at the next gathering certainly added to my enjoyment.

 

[fairybasslet]

Heads up. One of my coworkers lost a custom made diamond bracelet (her husband is a jeweler) in Puerto Rico (not sure exactly where.) She told me she knew where she dropped it and asked if I though I could find it. Of course this was weeks later. I told her to go back with a metal detector.

 

[tedtim]

Ka-ching #1. We had finished a short drift dive and were walking back to the parking lot. We walked through a marina area to get there. Some folks on a boat caught our attention. They were partying a bit to hard and one of them had knocked another's prescription glasses into the water. They asked if we could jump in a take a look (silt and grass on the bottom). I donned my fins, popped my reg into my mouth, put on the mask and splashed. Two minutes later I was back with the glasses - $10 finders fee.

Ka-ching #2. We were returning to the entry point on a shore dive when my dive buddy took a sudden turn to the left. She had her sights set on something on the bottom a few fin kicks away. It took her about ten seconds to return with a big grin and a $20 bill.

 

[Guba]

A favorite dive is to drift down the Comal River (shortest river in Texas...spring fed, so it has good vis!). It's shallow--usually about 10 feet--but a lot of "tubers" float it on any given summer day. Hence, a drift dive there commonly produces lots of sunglasses, coins (even some bills, in fact), hats, the occassional set of car keys, and there was once that mysterious bikini top (hmmm). Of course, it's usually impossible to match the stuff to the person who lost it (one would have thought that would have been easy in the case of the bikini but, alas, it wasn't), so it all falls into the category of "booty". Lots of fun.

 

[sea nmf]

My dive buddy found a fresh pair of Maui Jim sunglasses on Sunday. These run from $125 - $200 a pair. Ka-ching!