What's the weirdest item you've found U/W?

[DEEP SEA]

One morning dive I found a green weight belt with home made weights and put it in my garage. About 12 years later a friend of mine happen to see it and quickly grabbed it. He explained it was his sister's and he was with her the day she lost it. He then peeled back the web belt to show each weight had his sisters first name stamped on the weights!

OK, now the weirdest find - while filming on Cocos Island, Coast Rico, I was fascinated with the stories of un-found treasures (Gold and Silver). I brought along a Fisher 1280X underwater metal detector. However, when I was getting ready to go out and find treasure, I was warned the Island was cursed :nono:! Electronic equipment will not work. OK, so what, I swam ashore hunting all the way. I found 5 items heavily encrusted. One was long, about 3' and all had weight to them. I excitedly went back to the boat and started chipping away at my treasure. The first item came out a shiny gray, it was an old spike. It actually start turning green right before my eyes. Before I could get started on the second item, the director stopped me and told me this would be a great addition to the show. He wanted me out at first light to bury the items in about 25' of water. He would then have Peter Benchly and Stan Waterman swim along and find the treasures. We had determined by now the long item was a musket barrel - hot dog! I could not wait to un-crust the rest of the stuff and/or go out looking for more stuff .

WELL, I buried the items good. I put a few beer bottles about 10 feet away from each item to point the way in the event Stan and Peter had trouble locating the items with the metal detector.

The curse began - First, Marty Snyderman did not like the beer bottles in frame so he put down his camera and collected each one :grrr:. Second, the metal detector stopped working! The director went crazy :yelling: as Stan and Peter looked all around only to find the musket barrel. The 1280X was brand new and worked flawlessly in practice (at home). It would not power up the whole rest of the trip no matter what I tried. It did however work fine when I got home and powered it up?

Maybe it was all for the best. I found out later you were supposed to have a treasure hunting permit to look for Cocos Island treasure (about $30,000.00us).

 

[Mario S Caner]

Diving Gal,
The Merman, the dreams, the beer and the toilet was indeed connected... are you telling me you don't remember! ;-0 Oh well we'll always have Paris!

 

[scubabunny]

Never found anything like a toilet, or a musket barrel (but, I DO hope the "dead man's finger" is a name of a sponge, or coral or SOMETHING!) Did find a round (link, chain, hunk?) of unused machine gun bullets from WWII partially encrusted with dead stuff. Its now sitting on the window sill in our kitchen. Probably NOT the best place for it, with the hot tropical sun and all. (Anyone know if ammunition has an expiration date?) Also have 1/2 of a bowl from a Japanese ship that was sunk in the Harbor during WWII. At least I assume its Japanese...don't think its from K-mart!

 

[Rick Murchison]

Recommend you get the stuff out of the house now! Old explosives get very unstable and are very unpredictable. In a word, they are often quite *dangerous* - much more so than when they are "fresh." Take 'em to the nearest EOD team (local police or military base) where they may be able to drill & drain 'em, but don't be surprised if they just blow 'em up.
Rick

 

[Mario S Caner]

Rick is dead on about getting the ordinance out of your house before it hurts someone. The window sill is perhaps just as bad as sticking it in the microwave... I would suggest you contact the base EOD team and have them prep it for you so you can still keep the souvenier... and all of your limbs.

 

[DEEP SEA]

These guys are right about old ordnance. I dove on an old WWI Ammo ship in the West Indies that has been sunk for years and not many people have dove. We took up some 20mm rounds that were laying about the wreck. I thought it would be cool to keep the shell casing so I removed the bullet. I remember the removal process was not easy due to the fact we only had dive knives and other cured items to bang away at the head. After tossing the head to the side, we poured out all the powder (Cordite) on the beach. By the end of the day the pile of powder was dry. Of course being curious we lite it - it burned like crazy! We were shocked! We also both slowly looked at the warhead wondering!

To this day I still wonder what happen to that thing we left laying on a small, little uninhabited island? :bonk:

 

[DivingGal]

Mario
So that's what happened to the lost weekend or was it longer, I just don't remember a-r-r-r-g! Do I dare ask for a rerun????? =-x

Not exactly a "found" item, but some of the diving up here is in a very old (turn of the century) lock system, so swiming through the locks always proves interesting, I've seen real interesting construction techniques, along with some of the old 'rubbish' from the same time frame.

 

[Mario S Caner]

Hey DivingGal, no worries, nothing happened that was too embarassing, if you don't believe me I can send you a copy of the video tape! LOL!

Speaking of toilet bowls, there is a toilet bowl graveyard off of the San Diego coast somewhere. I hear the boat captains talking about it during Lobster season year after year, but haven't dove it yet. From what they say there is somewhere in the vicinity of 3000 toilet bowls dumped into piles when the city converted to more efficient models. The stories talk of massive lobsters and great (funny) photo opportunities. I figure that should be the first place we take Iguana Don when he get out to San Diego. Waddya say?

 

[dsquid]

Back in the early 90's I found a man's diamond wedding
ring off St. Johns in the USVI. The question is, (seeing has how the USVI are a popular honeymoon spot) did it
slip off or did someone throw it out there

Bill

 

[caymancase]

The "WarHammer Maneuver" with 3000 toilets in the background!!! That would be a classic! Casey