Interesting topic. Wondered about this sort of thing a few weeks ago when we pulled an anchor up from The Red Sea off of Panama City Beach. It had gotten hung by a fisherman and abandoned. We brought it up and looked for markings on it so we could return it but there were none. The charter captain seemed pleased that there were not any. We gave it to him.
Recovered (salvage) items returned ???
- Thread starter amanphoto
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CT-Rich
Contributor
Another reasonable option would have been to call him and say "I heard you lost a prop recently. I found one that might be yours from what I heard." He is not the only one to lose a prop and if the boat is underway, finding it is problematic. Offering it too him and negotiating a fair fee would have been reasonable since you did it completely on spec, in really crappy conditions If you had come up empty, this guy would never had known and if you sold the prop, this guy would never have known. He went out and bought a replacement, so I think that would classify it as abandoned and fair game (I would not have sold it without offering it to him first).
If you did it for fun and you returned it to him with no expectation of reward shows you have a bit of class. When I have been asked to look for something, I get some pre-negotiated compensation. This was a fun task, if you had offered the return of the prop for compensation for your time and effort, I doubt he would have complained.
If you did it for fun and you returned it to him with no expectation of reward shows you have a bit of class. When I have been asked to look for something, I get some pre-negotiated compensation. This was a fun task, if you had offered the return of the prop for compensation for your time and effort, I doubt he would have complained.
Shoot, I was down there just two weeks ago and was on a charter, we found an anchor on one of the barges there in PCB. It also had no markings and the DM was happy to take it. It was hooked into one of the holes in the barge, really good.
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Good for you!
You had a legal and certainly moral obligation to return it.
Now you have a new friend that you didn't have before
SDM
We were diving at a popular site last week. It's a working harbor so one can't complain about all the mooring blocks and chains, but at one point we came across easily over 150ft of large chain laying on the bottom. We followed for a while, but finally gave up as we were bored. Looks like someone didn't dog the anchor and it all spooled out.
We left it but did ask ourselves how many lift bags... ;-)
We left it but did ask ourselves how many lift bags... ;-)
Legal? Not hardly. He could have put that thing on eBay and sold it all day, LEGALLY.
Moral obligation, you hit the nail on the head there.
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