Posted by Max Bottomtime on April 14, 2002 at 10:11:20:
In Reply to: You have never lost anything? posted by Wayne on April 14, 2002 at 00:33:06:
I was diving at the wreck of the Tuna Clipper off the West end of Catalina once. My buddy recovered a large brass intake cover from the wreck and clipped it and a liftbag to my anchor. When we pulled up the anchor, there was no liftbag or brass. Needless to say, my buddy was bummed. He really wanted to go back down to look for it, but at 180 feet he wouldn't have much time. My wife wanted to go take pictures of some orange-throated Pike Blennies that we could only find ten miles away near Goat Harbor. We went there for a second dive and my buddy sat it out, giving me his depressed look.:-)
After the second dive he begged me to take him back to the Tuna Clipper. I said OK, but there was no way he would ever find it. We didn't know at what point it came off the anchor, and we weren't even anchored near the wreck on the first dive. He came up after about 20 minutes with a big grin on his face. He found it about 50 feet from the wreck. Just lucky, I guess. When he climbed up my swim ladder, he dropped his Pelican light and watched it sink. He was destined to lose something that day.
Another time at Santa Barbara Island, a Sea Lion took my wife's Nikonos V and strobe and swam off with it. We searched for 30 minutes with no luck. I decided to give up the search and swim over to a reef nearby. I saw her camera out in the sand, about 200 yards from our entry point. My wife was lucky that day.