Ever thought undersea treasure was an old myth and only for the pirates of the Caribbean? Well, think again. Right here, in the waters of Port Elizabeth, Pro Dive divers had an exciting “treasure adventure” recently.
Twice in the space of two weeks, the divers found safes – filled with bound white paper resembling stacks of money – just off Shark Rock pier.
On Wednesday, a dive that started uneventfully ended with the second mysterious safe brought to the surface.
And while the Pro Dive office has been buzzing with news of offshore treasure, one of the youngsters who found the safe laughed it off.
“I think it is an overstatement to call it a treasure,” Ross Gammon, 18, said.
“We went in just after 8am [on Wednesday].
“Some distance from the shore, we saw the safe in the sand.
“We immediately recognised it because we had found a similar one two weeks ago.”
Gammon said the safe was not very sturdy.
“We broke it open right there on the beach.
“It was filled with blank pieces of paper bound together. It looked like fake money.
“Someone is dumping safes,” Gammon said.
“The first one could have been dumped off the pier, but the second one was too far [out at sea].”
He said the first safe was now being used as a seat at Pro Dive in Walmer but the second one was so broken they had just thrown it away.
“We are always finding weird things that people are throwing into the water off the pier,” he said.
“Once we found a crutch and someone also found a ring,” he said.
Aidan Riggien, 18, who was also part of both dives, said he had helped to “swim” the safe back to the beach on Wednesday morning.
“It was half-covered with sand when we saw it,” he said.
“It was black on top and filled with mud.
“On the beach, we just dropped it a couple of times and it opened.”
He said the safe and the bundles of white paper found inside were exactly the same as the first one.
The first safe was spotted by spear fisherman Eldrid van Hayssteen, known as Uncle Al to the Pro Dive divers.
He quickly summoned the nearest divers he could find to try to bring it to the surface.
Pro Dive career development programme divers Ben du Toit, 22, and Coban-Dean Suttie, 20, were eager to volunteer their scuba-diving services.
They swam to the bottom, communicating as best they could underwater, to try to recover the “treasure” embedded in the ocean floor.
The divers, having used most of their air to recover the heavy safe, used a lift bag to float it to the surface and shifted the safe onto nearby rocks to be carried out.
The safe was opened amid much excitement, which quickly turned into a sigh of disappointment when they discovered nothing more than bundles of paper.
“We were expecting something great,” Du Toit said.
While he admitted to being slightly disappointed, he said the dive had still been a good experience.
Du Toit said he believed the safe and stacks of paper had formed part of some type of scam.
“I think someone was printing fake money for a scam.
“I think they printed on the paper, but the ink washed off when it got wet.”