So you think you've found a bomb, do you bring it up and give it to the lifeguards?

[smellzlikefish]

Hi Fri-

They are kind of sprinkled all over the place. Of course there is Ordinance Beach out west and I've come across some spent shells outside of Pearl Harbor. They used to straif (sp?) the islands outside of Bellows. Then we came across some obvious missiles/bombs on Moku Ho Oniki Rock on Molokai. We came across a bunch of bomb-like junk inside of Kure a couple of summers ago that turned out to be a false alarm, but then, I'd rather swim away from a false alarm than grab a bomb in the wrong way at the wrong time. I feel like there are others that I'm forgetting.

 

[owsistu]

Is the guy who found it a member of this forum?

If you are, let us know what happened, you made the news!

:zen:

It was recovered by a free diver. This marker was three foot long and six inched in diameter. Heavy... Lift bag???? I think not.

 

[rgbmatt]

Just out of curiosity, how many times have you come across them? I know they're around on the other islands, seen pictures posted on this forum over the years, only thing I ever run across here is beer bottles.

They're fairly common on Oahu. Supposedly after WWII the military hadn't foreseen the advent of scuba diving and dumped a lot of ordinance & other rubbish in shallow water. Most of it is nowhere near the popular dive sites, though, so it's not usually seen by the general public.

Most of what you see are artillery shells, bullets & cartridges of various types, and lots of gas cylinders. On a couple instances I've found what look like bombs and, once, a torpedo.

Personally I don't feel that reporting it is a good idea. Since most of it is far removed from areas where people will find it, it's not doing any harm and removing it will probably harm the reef.

 

[bluemagoo]

We were there. The newspaper said it was found by a couple of freedivers; apparently FII instructors. That kinda makes a bit of sense because I saw one guy with full suit and longblades coming in thru the Slot from outside at around 9:40. There was a kid with him and so I figured it was a father-son deal and thought nothing more of it. Didn't see this particular guy with anything in his hands.

Anyway, my wife and I were poking around in Sandman's Patch; checked on the 2 resident whitetips who today were sharing a hole off to the side. Then HPD and HFD come steaming down the hill. The guards are amped on the bullhorns, telling everyone to evacuate the beach. I think, "tsunami". Oh, shat. So I grab her hand and throttled up the longblades to fangs-out, zone 5 afterburner to the beach; she was kinda flapping in the slipstream.

The HFD guys were saying something about possible military ordinance. We were halfway up the hill, the beach totally deserted, 2 guys on scuba come picking their way in thru Backdoor. I could almost see the WTF looks when they popped their heads up and saw the empty beach. The guards were yelling at 'em to get in NOW.

 

[drbill]

A friend found an undetonated 50 caliber shell in our Casino Point dive park and asked what he should do about it. Since it was undoubtedly left over from the days during WWII when the area was used for anti-aircraft and other training, I wasn't too worried about it but suggested he let the authorities know.

I think something got lost in translation. The authorities closed the dive park and called in the bomb squad from the mainland. My guess is that they heard 50 mm rather than 50 caliber. Read the story here:

Star Thrower Educational Multimedia (S.T.E.M.) Dive Dry Column