Surfer reunited with Apple Watch... six months after the ocean ripped it from him

[sincity]

Apple is well into the notion of using your Watch to do extreme things... surfing the ocean, riding waves and being totally tubular certainly is that.

However, US wave-rider Robert Bainter had his prized smart timepiece ripped from his wrist by the steely clutches of the ocean, and (like most people) he assumed it would never be found again.

That was despite searching for the Apple Watch with Find My iPhone, the feature on Apple's phone that lets you look for any device associated with your Apple ID - and in the end he turned on Lost Mode (so anyone finding it would see his contact details) and put down his quest.

"I don't know, I just had this feeling I was going to get it back," Bainter told US news channel KLTA.

Six months later, he received a call from an unknown number, and the fellow on the end of the phone asked him to describe a Watch he might have lost 'recently'. It turns out the Apple Watch had slunk three miles up the coast and was picked up by someone looking for shells.

What's more impressive is that the Watch still worked - we have to assume that this model was the Apple Watch 2 or above to have a greater degree of water resistance.

While this story sounds like one of those quirky ones at the end of a serious news bulletin, it actually shows the hardiness of Apple's devices. It's certain this wearable would have been submerged for more than the few hours suggested, and at greater depths.

Apparently only a slight haze on the screen from the salt water was left, with the finder able to power the Watch back up and see Bainter's contact details from Lost Mode (showing it's always worth enabling that if you mis-place a device).

Bainter had already bought a new Watch by the time he got his old model back, and with the screen being a bit scuffed up he probably wouldn't want to go to back to it, but it's nice to know that it's not lost in the cave of some teenage mermaid.

Via AppleInsider

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