How Many Cell Phones Are in the Bay?
Jim Hancock of the San Francisco Science Sailing Center emailed the other day, wondering if we had any stories on how many cell phones might be in the Bay. We know there are plenty. He had a couple of friends who’d recently lost phones in the Bay and was curious about how many other stories we’d heard.
Of course, we have our own, too. We remember losing a Palm Pilot (what the heck is that?) out of our breast pocket when we leaned down to snug up a dock line. A few years ago, while in a celebratory moment on the dock with our daughter, our hands collided and sent her cell phone in a great arc into the water. Then a while back we had a close call when a cell phone dropped to the dock and bounced up against a dock box.
We’re sure most of the barges filled with dredging spoils from the various marinas around the Bay must be half filled with cell phones (and sunglasses).
The Bay is surrounded by tech and an active sailing population of ‘early adopters,’ so it stands to reason that it must have one of the highest concentrations anywhere of cell phones resting on the bottom.
How many have you lost? How have you lost it/them? We’re sure ‘Find My Phone’ doesn’t help at the bottom of the Bay, but have you had any miraculous recoveries anyway? Let us know in the comments below.
Sunglasses, many.
How about crescent wrenches, pipe wrenches, sockets and vise grips?
Neptune’s locker is filled in most marinas
Winch handles! and many hand tools.
My BlackBerry took a long dunk into the Bay never to be found again. Harbor it fell into has been dredged so no idea where it might be now.
We probably average about one phone a year to the deep.
The best story is we were out on a winters day, with the wind out of the north. Sailed up to the Brothers, where we set the chute, and started reaching and jibing into the strong flood, getting maximum kite time and speed.
We were listening to a guest’s music selection on the Bluetooth speaker. During one of the jibes, the speaker literally went “plop”, and then silence. Her phone had come out of her jacket pocket, and slide overboard.
We all new instantly, what had happened.
I almost lost my wedding ring 3 times. The first time I had to get it cut off when my hand got caught between a dock and the boat. My wife had it restored as a birthday present. Next, I noticed that I was not wearing my ring when I got home after teaching sailing. I immediately went back to the boat but had no luck finding it. I went back again after a couple of days. This time as I unfolded mainsail I heard the unmistakable “ping” as it hit the deck. The third time my ring slipped off my soapy hand while showering. Luckily, it got caught in a crack in the swim platform.
My Samsung Active, a “waterproof” phone, fell out of my pocket and went for a brief swim while I was working on my bright work. I heard a clunk and splash. I immediately knew what happened. Fortunately, there was a diver nearby. He told me it was a lost cause but went down to search anyway. A friend called my number and the diver noticed a glow in the silt. It was my phone! It was in 35′ of water. I’m still using the phone.
Shelly, that is a good endorsement of that particular phone! I haven’t lost a phone overboard, but I did lose my keys over the rail of my Cal 20. They were in the front pocket of a button-down shirt I was wearing. I leaned over, and plop! Fortunately, Iris was in her slip at the time, and I knew just where the keys fell. No electronic keys at that time, and all were replaceable. But the keychain itself was a heavy silver memento that I would have been heartbroken to lose. I called the diver (Bob Galvin) who cleaned Iris’s bottom and asked him to try to find it. Luckily, he retrieved it for me. Though the keys have changed over the years, I still have the keychain.
Ditto on losing an iPhone out of my breast pocket when leaning down to snug up a dock line. Splash and plunk and disappeared in seconds to the bottom of Richardson Bay. My whole life was on that phone! Thank heavens for iCloud backups…I was up and running again with new iPhone (latest model of course…cha-ching $$) within a couple hours. Whew!