# Stories about when people ask for help recovering things.



## blobbottlebob (Mar 19, 2018)

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


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## blobbottlebob (Mar 19, 2018)

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 . . .


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## blobbottlebob (Mar 19, 2018)

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.


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## blobbottlebob (Mar 20, 2018)

Okay. My goal is not to write a novel - but I did anyway. Hope you like it.


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## blobbottlebob (Mar 20, 2018)

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.


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## iggyworf (Mar 21, 2018)

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


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## blobbottlebob (Mar 21, 2018)

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


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## blobbottlebob (Mar 23, 2018)

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.


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## blobbottlebob (Mar 23, 2018)

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).


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## blobbottlebob (Mar 23, 2018)

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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## blobbottlebob (Mar 23, 2018)

My dive buddy agrees to search a half a tank (and then we could go bottle dive for one and a half more). The two fisherman pick us up at a dock and come to a consensus as to where the rod met it's watery resting place. We begin our search. Right away, there is a problem. In the intervening time since my last effort, there has been an algae bloom. A little hard to describe, but it is like floating cottony green clouds that are big and obnoxious. If you swim into one, you see nothing. If you try to brush it away, your hand just goes right through it. It is soft squishy with no substance. I tried to pull a big glob out of the water at the surface and a thin layer of slippery slime covered my fingers. Uh oh.

We continued to search anyway. The two  fisherman realized that nothing was happening fast, so they went off to fish. They said they'd be close enough to see us so that we could signal them if we needed to. Tom and I searched and searched. Conditions were not ideal but I was convinced that if anyone could find it, we would. Unfortunately, we weren't. Eventually, we were forced to realize that if we couldn't get it in all that time, it may be unrecoverable. We were getting ready to give it up in a few minutes so that we could still search for bottles. Then at the bottom, I saw a tiny bit of a purple-ish color. Not what I had been seeing. I checked to find out if it was a wrapper or garbage or what. As I grabbed it, I saw the rubbery stringy hair-like substance  that lures have (especially spin baits). And, the lure is attached to a line which is attached to a pole. A LaCroix pole! I found it. I went over and told my buddy to stop looking,  I had it. Then I waved it around in the air above the water to signal them.

The rod was completely buried in a very fine sediment making it virtually invisible. Amazingly, it had tiny zebra mussels on it already and it wasn't down there more than a few weeks. The owner tried a cast and it worked perfectly like it had never been submerged.

We climbed aboard and he took us off to the spot where we wanted to bottle dive. We each found some old glass including hutches, but nothing major came out besides the pole. We switched tanks and clipped the extras on our floats. When we finished, we swam back to the dock where we started across a big bay.


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## blobbottlebob (Mar 24, 2018)

I am not too excited about this recovery attempt but not everything goes the way you hope.

The bait shop near where we often launch our boat lost a new motor when it literally fell off a rental in the middle of the lake. Not a deep spot. Maybe 6 or 7 feet. Presumably, the new motor was not mounted correctly, but maybe we could find and salvage it.

When it fell off, the people in the boat alertly set an anchor. That should have put us right where it fell off. However, the bait shop didn't want their customer stranded so, they picked them up and gave them a new boat. To keep tabs on the motor's location, they tied an anchor to a life-jacket to mark  the spot and put it in place. What could go wrong?

I'll tell you. A good Samaritan recognized that this life jacket belonged to the bait shop. They would return it. When they plucked it out, it seemed strange that it was tied to an anchor. Oh well, they returned it anyway. Now the only thing precisely marking the location was gone. Uh oh.

Could we find it? Well, we really wanted to. The owner of Smokey's bait shop was a very nice man. He had always been great to us. He also tried to encourage kids to fish and helped link kids with sheriffs to go out on fishing adventures. We really wanted to help.

When we got out there we realized this was a bad weedy area. If the heavy motor sank beneath the mat of weeds, it would not be easy to find.  Plus, one shoreline that was used as a landmark was a mile away. The other at least a quarter of a mile. In other words, we could be hundreds and hundreds of feet off in any direction. That is a gigantic search field. But the motor was big. Maybe we'd see it right away and find it easily? Nope. Three guys spent our entire tanks looking. We did not find it. It was really a shame. But as I noted at the beginning, you just don't win them all.


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## blobbottlebob (Mar 25, 2018)

I am out diving one sunny afternoon out away from shore. I surfaced and someone is out at the edge of their pier waving their arms around trying to get my attention. I briefly considered just ignoring this but I do want people to have a positive opinion about divers. The day that no diving signs go up, is the day my hobby gets restricted. For example, there is a police boat on a lake that I go to. He pulled over by us as we were suiting up one day and asked if we wanted them to hang around and make sure no one goes to close to our flags. A kind offer that was well intentioned. I said "No, thank you". The reason is that when some boater who lives on the lake comes too close, the police are likely to stop them and they may potentially get a ticket. That is going to frustrate them and give them the impression that divers stink. (We literally do sometimes when going in muddy conditions). Anyway, I'd rather dive safely, protect myself, than have the legitimate landowners fined on their own lake.

So, I swam over to the pier of the man flagging me down. He says that he lost a nice anchor right out there. Could I find it? Can you be more precise? He points out over the water waving his arm right and left. How far out? Just where you were before. Where I came from was 250 feet away.

Okay. This is a relatively small object. Visibility was one to three feet. Even if it was not buried, I'd have to swim right on it to find it. The odds seemed astronomical. Nonetheless, I said I would try. My plan was to look for 5 to 10 minutes and then go back to bottle diving.

What he neglected to tell me was that he had at least a hundred feet of line on it. A hundred feet of line is way easier to cross. On my first pass, two minutes in, I found the line. I pulled on one end, nothing. Pulled the other direction and there was an anchor attached. It was one of those type that have a curved bottom with what looks like arrow heads for points, then a shaft going up with a crossbar sideways to the curved bottom. It was nice.

I swam it back in and the gent came running down from his house. He was so excited. He handed me a twenty dollar bill. I thought that this was too much based on the amount of work it took to find it. He replied that this was super expensive and insisted that I keep it. I thanked him then gave him a another anchor I had found earlier as a back-up and a few common crowns.


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## KnottaCollector (Mar 26, 2018)

Blob.... I don't dive anymore for health reasons. Still snorkel on occasion. Find plenty of things in shallower water that people toss or have fallen overboard. I've pretty much scoured the lake bottom where my cabin is at, plus many others. Fished up several angling devices, several good plough anchors, big 12V boat batteries, cell phones & pagers(pagers offer cash rewards if found), and all kinds of boating paraphernalia including outboards and one time a complete canoe. 

I pick up bottles (and cans) all the time if only to clean the lake. Lots of beer bottles, not sure if that's a good thing. Some have been there a long time. I've only kept 3 bottles in all that time. All glass embossed in good shape(no chips or cracks), one a 6.5 oz green skirted bottle of Vess Dry, a K_untz beverage bottle and a 1967 Coca Cola bottle with the both English & French 'No deposit" "No return". Maybe because I'd never seen them before. I was 14 when the coca-cola bottle came out and I couldn't afford a pop in those days. I keep them on a bookshelf next to my computer so I see them almost every day. 

The people here are very bottle knowledgeable from what I've been able to gather. If you find something unusual then allow these guys to give you some quick info on the find. Best of luck in your diving adventures.


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## blobbottlebob (Mar 26, 2018)

Hey Knotta,
Thanks for your reply and well wishes. Sorry that you can't dive anymore. It will be a sad day for me when I have to hang it up because I love it. I have found some cool bottles in shallow water including hutches, milks, medicines and blob beers. So, keep your eyes peeled. From time to time I do some eco cleanup by clearing out trash but not too often. Years ago, I cleaned lots steel off the bottom. I was building a mound in the garage. When I tool it in, I got $8.95 for 895 pounds. That cured me. I always take lead out nowadays cause its not good for the lake but not so much steel.

Anyone ever ask you to help recover things when you were diving?


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## KnottaCollector (Mar 27, 2018)

> Anyone ever ask you to help recover things when you were diving?



Helped recover a brand new 75 hp outboard that wasn't attached to a transom very well. Was in deep channel at the mouth of a Trent canal lock. Lots of traffic and deeper than expected, took more time than we figured. Only other time was when a neighbour asked if I'd look for his lost anchor. Never found it. Also have unplugged several pump intakes for cottages.

Amazing amount of the old stubby beer bottles still underwater. I also used to wonder how, on a rocky bottom, one can still find a 50+ year old bottle undamaged but it happens a lot. Most times on sand bottom you need good visibility because you may only see the neck of a bottle sticking up and when you reach down to pull it out, no surprise if that's all there is. 

Snorkelling becoming a chore now. As I get older the wetsuit fits tighter, if you know what I mean. I always wear it to ward off the chills. I usually don't go any deeper than 20 feet if I have to hold my breath and dive to recover an object. Even then it would have to be worth the trouble. My wife gives me **** when I do that. Best of luck


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## blobbottlebob (Mar 27, 2018)

Thanks again Knotta.
I almost always wear a wet suit. It feels really weird when your knees bump the bottom or weeds rub against your skin. Even the straps of your BC can give you trouble if it is right on your shoulders.

I have snorkelled deep before. We were in Cozmel in an area about 40 feet deep. We would hold our breath and swim to the bottom. (You need to know how to equalize or you shouldn't be trying this). Because of the great visibility, you could see the surface. It looked so far away that it would make me nervous. Then I would swim back up and as I surfaced, I would think that I could have stayed down longer. One of my dive buddies was flipping rocks, chasing octopi etc...

The 75 horse is a big object. I would get help from someone at the surface pulling on a line while I tried to carry it up. The only motor I have brought back up was done by lifting it along the bottom a few feet at a time until I got to shore.


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## GEEMAN (Apr 5, 2018)

Always enjoy reading your stories Bob. The river here is almost summer level low and about as clear as you'll see it right now. That's pretty unusual for this time of year.


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## blobbottlebob (Apr 5, 2018)

Hey Brian. Thank you for your comments. The river sounds inviting but it's still way too cold for me. I need some toasty warm days to warm things up and that takes awhile...


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