Many said she was out of luck, phone lost in remote lake and recovered!
One adventurous morning, Anne decided to take her son on a paddle boarding adventure. 45 minutes into paddling they entered into a beautiful bay. They decided to go for a swim but when she got off her board, she found herself up to her knees in branches and silt. This is when she lost her phone and saw it fall and disappear quickly. She tried and tried to find it with no luck. She returned with a non waterproof detector that she borrowed to no avail. She tried fishing with a magnet and nothing. She even returned with a hand held underwater detector and scuba gear and again no luck. A lot of people told her she would probably never see it again. She had two years of precious photos and memories she didn’t want to give up on.
I headed off Saturday morning with a friend of mine Jeff. We met up with Anne at 10:30 AM at a really remote location. We paddled through a lake, then into a channel that brought us to a bay. Anna showed us where she had lost her phone. It looked to be in 4 feet of water but when I stepped in, It took me by surprise, I sunk to my knees. Immediately the water turned black and I had no visibility. Oh I knew we were in for a challenge. Jeff and I gridded the area for over an hour and a half without a signal. So we decided to expand the search area a little bit. We set ourselves 10 feet further back. This is when Jeff had a slamming signal and called me over. Jeff put his foot over it and I dove down, grabbed his leg to anchor myself and started feeling around with the pointer. It started vibrating and I grabbed a handful of gunk and could feel I had something and out came a phone! First thing I noticed was this one had a blue case. I told Jeff I was sure she said hers was yellow. He looks at me and said “are you messing with me?” How could another phone be lost in such a remote location! Sure enough it wasn’t hers.. We kept searching for another three hours! I said to Jeff I’m ready to call it a day but one more pass. This time I was on the paddle board and I got a signal that had to be the phone. I jammed the paddle in the bottom as I drifted away from the signal. Jeff came over quickly and grabbed the paddle. Placed his foot over the target and pulled the paddle out. I dove down again grabbing his leg to anchor myself.
I could feel the shape of the phone and this time, upon surfacing, it had a yellow case! She shook with excitement when she saw it! She was so happy to finally have it back. It really pays to be persistent, she accomplished something many people didn’t think she could.
Another great recovery! Video of recovery can be seen here https://youtu.be/vQ7TNkw_fcI
