July 7, 2022
The 4th of July passed without anyone calling for help in finding a lost item. Tuesday was a day for a walk in the ocean keeping up with exercise and keeping the old body moving. It was after three coins in the first hour before I heard a big target. My first scoop missed it, the second was taken with a bit more care not to mar the object which turned out to be an Apple iPhone 10. I continued on detecting with Leighton who was finding just a very few finds also.
Back at the car, the iPhone powered up but was locked and had almost no charge. We turned it off and went on to detect in a few freshwater ponds. At home I put the iPhone on the charger and after about a half an hour of charging I tried to power it up again. This time I saw a message on the screen that the phone had been reported as LOST. The best was the last sentence “Please call 508-xxx-xxxx”, which I did. Luckily the group had only started their way off Cape Cod heading home. They had been in traffic for about an hour, turned around and in less than a half hour they arrived at my home to retrieve the phone. A few quick pictures, a grateful hug and they were off on the trip back home again.
Justin, the owner of the phone that had been bought with his mother’s help had all of Justin’s photos and personal information which he was more than thrilled to have back. He had been on the beach, but not in the water and believes the phone fell out of his pocket. The tides over the 5 days it was in the salt water must have pulled the phone into about 3 feet of water where I found it. Had Justin’s friend, Colby, not put up the notice on the phone there would have been no way for me to unlock and retrieve any information that might have been used to return the phone. We all agreed that everyone should have this type of information on the startup screen or on an I.C.E. (In Case of Emergency) screen, just in case…
