Charlie Kassatly, a New York visitor, figured it was a lost cause when he recently dropped an iPod Touch into the water above the sunken Carthaginian, a replica whaling ship in the waters off West Maui.
After all, the device, which the family had been using to take pictures and videos of their first Hawaii vacation, had plummeted 100 feet, a distance that pushes the limits that many recreational divers will venture.
"One of the guys on our tour swam after it, but he only made it 60 or 70 feet before he realized that he just couldn’t go any farther," Kassatly said. "At that point we gave up. The DiCAPac A waterproof case that we bought at the ABC Store was only supposed to be good for 30 feet."
That could have been the end of the story save for an observant visitor and staff from two helpful Hawaii activity operators, Atlantis Adventures Maui and Lahaina Divers, who took it upon themselves to act as good Samaritans for travelers who weren’t even their customers. The morning after the iPod drop, visitors on an Atlantis Adventures Maui submarine dive spotted the metallic iPod glittering from an algae field at the bottom of the ocean.
"They alerted the Atlantis pilot, Jeff Sorensen, who took a quick photo of the iPod, which was in a case, on the bottom," said Jim Walsh, Atlantis Adventures Maui general manager. "We had never seen anything like that. We’ve seen our own phones on the bottom, but none of them have ever been in the case, so there would be no sense retrieving them."
Since Kassatly’s phone was encased, Sorenson asked staff with Lahaina Divers, a more than 25-year-old dive company, to retrieve it on their next Carthaginian dive.
"Sure enough, one of the Lahaina Divers staff picked it up and returned it to Jeff," Walsh said. "Jeff, now curious, took it out of the waterproof case, and, low and behold, it worked! Jeff was able to turn on the iPod!. He got to work and started texting people that he saw on the iPod, and finally one person returned his text message."
Kassatly said some of the couple’s friends back on the East Coast thought the texts were a joke; however, his wife, Kelly, was delighted to respond.
"He must have texted half a dozen people before he found my wife. We were still in Maui, so we were able to pick it up," he said. "It was such a great feeling that people would go that far out of their way to help out. I hate to say it, but coming from New York, that’s not something that we are used to hearing about. I’m definitely glad that we lost it in Hawaii and not some of the other places that we’ve visited."
Lahaina Divers General Manager Tim Means said it was all in a day’s work for his employees, who have recovered wedding rings and cameras for other Maui visitors.
"I’m not surprised to hear that our staff retrieved the iPod," Means said. "They frequently respond to email blasts from one business or another asking for help in locating items that their customers have lost. If someone lost something expensive or sentimental and we can help, why not pick it up and give it back? The aloha spirit … it’s why we all choose to live here."
Walsh said retrieving a still-working iPod touch is a first for Atlantis Maui; however, the action aligns with the company’s values.
"We like to share our aloha and our love of Hawaii. We usually do that through the underwater experience. It’s not all the time that we get to touch someone outside of our sphere of influence," he said.
Kassatly said Atlantis Adventures Maui and Lahaina Divers employees provided a true glimpse of the state’s famous aloha spirit, and more important, a lasting reminder of what has become one of their favorite trips.
"We could have bought another iPod, but this one had five days of video and about 100 photographs of our first family vacation to Maui with our 8-year-old twins, Corinne and Brianna. We would never have been able to replace that," Kassatly said. "We are so thankful. We’d come back to Maui in a heartbeat."
