Stories about when people ask for help recovering things.

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blobbottlebob

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I'm going to start a new thread here because I think I can tell a bunch of these stories and I'm hoping other divers will have some as well.

This thread kind of started after my 'clay beer spot' story discussing diving. Rather than copy what we wrote, you can see the thread (at the upcoming link) where I told the story of trying to recover a lost log book of data for a muskey study. Right after that, Coldwater diver (Kevin) discusses searching for a purse lost when someone backed up into a pond.

https://www.antique-bottles.net/showthread.php?688830-My-Clay-spot/page6
 

blobbottlebob

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Poop.
Typed awhile on here and lost it all. I know, type it then cut and paste. Shoot.
Coming tomorrow. A story about how I tried to recover a sailboat mast lost in 100 feet of water . . .
 

blobbottlebob

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Oh dang! I saw that the site auto saved it at the bottom, but I didn't see that til I already pressed post quick reply. Double poop.
 

blobbottlebob

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Okay. A sailboat mast recovery story.
A buddy of mine from collecting bottles also sailboat races. A sailor that he knows lost his mast when it rolled off his boat. Would I be willing to search for it?
The good news.
He thinks he knows right where he lost it.
The lake has crisp clean water with excellent visibility.
The lake is beautiful and very exclusive with gorgeous houses.
He will pay me just for searching and more if I can recover it.
The bad news.
He thinks it is 100 feet deep.
Okay. Stepping back a bit. All things being equal, I would rather dive in three feet of water than 100. If something goes wrong at three feet, you can stand up. At 100 feet, you'd better be thinking about surfacing and fast because there is less margin for error. At 100 feet, the pressure is so much greater that you end up breathing super compressed air. That makes you go through your air four times faster than at the surface. It can cause nitrogen to build up in your bloodstream (with an increased risk of the bends). You can have an intoxicated reaction called nitrogen narcosis which can lead to poor decision making. ETC...
Don't get me wrong though. If you told me that there was one hundred dollars waiting for me at 100 feet. I'd do it. I said "Yes".
My deepest dive at that point in fresh water was 65 feet. In the ocean, 158 feet (a little deeper than the recreational dive limit). My experience in the lake at 65 feet was horrible. There was no light because of the particulate in the water. Almost pitch dark. The bottom there was squishy mud with nothing to find. There was a suspended layer at the bottom of something rather fetid. I could both smell and slightly taste whatever foul substance was there. In short, I didn't like it much and surfaced after only a few minutes.
So, the 100 feet deep search was cause for concern. As I planned the dive, I wondered how he knew it was 100 feet deep. Maybe he looked at a depth gauge? I couldn't help but imagine this thing was way out in the middle and I was going to have the same or similar problems that I had at 65 feet. I pulled out a long rope that I had found with an anchor and began to put markings on it. I put a small line after every foot of rope, a larger line at five feet and a distinctive marking every ten feet. I devised a system that would show how many feet I was from the anchor even in poor visibility. I tied an anchor to the bottom, a float to the other end. I planned to drop the thing off the boat and to use my marked line to show me exactly how deep it was. Then I could follow my line down to the centerpoint of my search grid. I could move several feet apart after searching in a circle and then move several more if I was unsuccessful, until I either found the thing or gave it up that it wasn't there.
Finally the day arrived. I met the gent who lost his mast. Nice guy. He paid me $60 with the promise of $40 more if I could recover the goods. We drove to the driveway of the house where he thought that he lost it. Luckily, he knew the people that lived there and had already obtained permission to park and dive from the pier. He told me to set the mast on shore if I found it and he would return later to get it. Next we walked over to the water's edge and he pointed out in a straight line. It was right there except 200 feet out, 100 feet deep.
Now I know from experience that you can see almost anywhere along the shoreline from a boat. The farther away you are, the harder it is to pinpoint a straight line directly to shore. However, it was as good a starting spot as any and where I planned to go. He left and I suited up. The people who lived there were watching.
I left my marked anchor line. Hopefully, I could use the shore as a basis for where I was and wouldn't need it. I submerged and started my descent. After a short flat ledge by shore, the bottom dropped away rapidly at about 45 degrees. At 55 feet, I saw a long stainless pole sideways along the drop off. I'd found the mast on my very first pass, only a few minutes into the search. The directions I had were close to perfect! And I was so happy that I saw it on my first pass because had it been out of sight, I would have continued down as deep as it was, then turned back up searching in zig zagging lines. I grabbed the tall pole and brought it back. I actually collected an anchor on the way up as well. Total success!
Since I still had my whole tank, I decided to dive for fun or bottles with the rest of my air. After ten or fifteen minutes, I'd found a gatorade bottle and seen nothing close to old. There was a whole lot of bass around that were juvenile but not tiny. Maybe 12 to 15 inches long. Then I saw one of those crayfish with the massive blue claws. I picked him up and flung him up towards a bass. Now, if you've ever seen a crayfish at the surface, they get very nervous cause they want the bottom for protection. They do this tail kick swim backwards which is irresistable to fish. The bass swooped up, and sucked the crayfish in his mouth in one quick motion. Except the crayfish was so big, that as he stuck his pinchers out wide, the fish couldn't swallow him. After just a few moments, the fish spit it out and the crayfish got to the bottom. I picked the crayfish up and tossed it towards a different bass. Same result. The bass tried to get it, but it was too wide, claws extended to eat. I briefly considered ripping the claws off the crayfish cause then it could be swallowed. But then I thought that it was too mean and frankly the thing deserved to live after that ordeal. So, I let it be.
I did get the forty bucks recovery fee in the end as well.
 

iggyworf

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Great story! When I go kayaking I try to always look for bottles and such when going down the river.
 

blobbottlebob

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Thanks Iggyworf. I imagine that in the right shallow areas or spots with good visibility, you could really clean up.
 

blobbottlebob

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Short one this time. Not so sweet though.

I guy calls me over to his pier. He says he dropped his keys in the water right there. Could I find them for him. He points straight down to where they fell off. It's three or four feet deep, muddy with rocks underneath. I can't see anything. I carefully pat around. Nothing. I start digging. A half hour later, I dug a two feet deep hole that was four feet wide. I told the guy, sorry but I can't find 'em.
 

blobbottlebob

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Okay. At work, I was allowed to put out bottles to give away.

One step back here. I find a whole lot of stuff and junk. Many of the bottles that I find are old, maybe even kind of neat, but super common. I have a hard time leaving them for several reasons. One, they are kind of cool. I can take a few. Before long, though, I have boxes of them and I'm not sure that I really want any. My wife is telling me to clear out some of that trash. Two, I figure that someone will want them. They're antiques. I should be able to give them away. Three, if I take them off the bottom, then when I find another one, I know that it's definitely not the one I put back. So, if I find a common bottle, that means that the area was not fully searched and I need to really start looking hard (in the hopes of more rare stuff).

So, I put some out at work. People would see them, take some, and talk about bottles there. I don't know about you guys, but talking about bottles at work nearly always beats talking about work things (for me anyway).
 

blobbottlebob

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So. Someone got tired of answering questions about my bottle shelf and wrote courtesy of Bob the diver on there. A customer asks, "Are you the diver?" Yes. "Do you ever dive in local lakes?" Yes. That's my hobby. "Would you like an adventure?" Maybe. What do you have in mind? "I lost my favorite LaCroix rod and reel over the weekend. Could you look for it?"

He claims that he knows right where it is and that it's not too deep. He was casting and it flung right out of his hands. Maybe 15 feet of water. I tell him that I dive there all the time and my next trip was the following week. I told him where I was diving and at what time. He couldn't be there in the beginning but he could come get me in the middle of my tank. Works for me.

As I was bottle hunting in 6 feet of water, he pulls up in his Lund fishing boat. He has multiple rods and reels in it, all rigged up for trolling with rotating seats, the whole deal. He takes me over and shows me where he lost it. It is out several hundred feet from shore. Again, I know from experience that the farther you get from shore, the harder it is to pinpoint exactly where you are (unless you mark it on a GPS - which he didn't). I submerge, try not to wreck the visibility and start searching around. I see nothing but weeds, muck, and the occasional rock. I went back up for clarification and he says "Well I could be off in almost any direction." He thought, for example, that it might be one house over. That is not that close. My search zone got way bigger. I ran out of air and did not find it. I vowed to try one more time with a dive buddy in tow to double our odds. He promised to bring the gent he was fishing with when he lost it for a better shot at where it sunk.
 

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