Apple Watch Lost at Sea for Almost 2 Years Found Thanks to ‘Find My’

In the summer of 2022, Jared Brick, a YouTuber of Brick House Media, lost his Apple Watch while swimming and diving. Thanks to the Find My feature, he recently got it back. He documented the return and its surprising story in a video. The watches were purchased so he and his son could stay connected during a family vacation.

Their family vacation included scuba diving in the British Virgin Islands, where Jared used his Apple Watch (rated for up to 50 meters or 164 feet) to track dives, some exceeding 100 feet. On their last day, while swimming in the shallow waters of The Baths on Virgin Gorda, Jared, captured on video by a friend, realized his Apple Watch was missing.

In his video, Brick admitted, “I didn’t realize it at the time, I was so distracted by the true beauty of that place.” Once he realized the loss, Brick got to another Apple device and, using Find My, reported the Apple Watch as lost.

Eighteen months later, in December 2023, a local resident of Virgin Gorda called Brick. The watch wasn’t just found at the same beach, but after charging it, the lost message with Brick’s phone number appeared. The man, named Jonathan, mailed it back to Brick, who lives in Felton, California, not far from Apple’s headquarters.

Remarkably, it survived its underwater adventure and the 3,600-mile return mail journey. In late April 2024, 22 months after losing it, the Apple Watch arrived. A video shows Brick opening the envelope to find it functioning perfectly. ‘Huge thanks to Jonathan in the Caribbean for finding it, contacting me, and shipping it back,’ Brick said, ‘and to Apple for making amazing technology that works.'”

Watch the video here

About Find My

Find My is an Apple service designed to help you track your Apple devices and other belongings. It works through the iCloud account connected to your devices. With Find My, you can locate your iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, AirPods, and even Macs on a map. It also works with items you attach Apple’s AirTags to, like keys or your wallet.

Beyond location tracking, Find My also lets you play sounds on your lost devices to help you find them nearby. If your device is lost and offline, you can put it in Lost Mode, which locks it down and displays a message with your contact information on the screen.

There’s even a feature called Precision Finding on newer iPhones that uses ultra-wideband technology to pinpoint the exact location of your AirTags or other devices with UWB support.