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| Returned Treasure of the Deep |
Wallets go overboard. Fishing gear sinks to the bottom of the lake. Keys drown. For Teddy Bacon, his expensive gold watch was lost to the sea in a harbor in Gibraltar in 1941. Like so many pairs of glasses and cell phones, Bacon, then Lieutenant Bacon of the HMS Repulse, watched as his watch slipped off of his wrist as he threw a line to shore.
Bacon bought the watch for $55 in the Azores on the way to Singapore as part of a fleet sent to counter the Japanese invasion. "I was showing one of the sailors how to throw a line to shore and I remember, as clear as day, seeing the watch sail off my wrist and disappear into the water," Bacon told the Daily Mail.
"I was pretty annoyed about it and two divers attached to the flotilla went down to have a look for it but could not see it." The two divers couldn't find the watch and Bacon gave up on his beloved Bulova Automatic. The deputy harbormaster made a note in his log with a description of the watch and the approximate location of the loss.
Sixty-seven years later, Bacon opened his door to find a plain paper bag waiting with the still working watch inside. "To say I was stunned could be considered a major understatement," the almost 90 year old Bacon said. "It truly was a miracle that I had been reunited with that watch after a lifetime.
"Now I wear it every day and it keeps perfect time, even after all those years in the water. It is absolutely excellent and I consider it a long-lost friend."
Workers dredging the harbor in 2007 had scooped the watch up along with debris. After finding the watch, the checked the old logs and sent the watch on its way to the address Bacon had left in 1941. The watch travelled to former home after former home before finally landing at Bacon's current address.
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