Lost Smartphone in the Ocean .. Newport Beach, CA. .. Found with Metal Detector

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tetsuya and his wife Maya are Japanese tourists visiting Newport Beach, CA. While walking on a breakwater he dropped his IPhone on the large rocks and it went into the water. It was high tide at the time of the loss so he asked me if I could help him find the smartphone.

We met at low tide, where Tetsuya was able to point out the general area. Hopefully the phone wasn’t deep inside the rock structure where I couldn’t get my metal detector. There was also the possibility that the receding waves could have pulled the phone down the sloping beach further out into the ocean.

I started my search over a  small patch of exposed sand between two rocks. Right away I got a signal. It was not possible to determine whether it was large or small because I couldn’t swing my coil in the confined space.

The sand was wet and firmly packed but I didn’t want to use my sand scoop for fear of damaging the iphone. I started digging with my hand. About 4 inches deep I felt the corner of the phone. Almost three quarters of the phone was under a rock. Tetsuya was standing next to me  and was surprised when I touched the phone and it was still working after surviving two hours in the salt water.

It was a pleasure to help them find an important item that we all know would be a disaster to lose while vacationing thousands of mile from home.