Video shows amazing story of an Apple Watch that sat in the ocean for 18 months and still runs

Apple's Find My feature uses the app with the same name to help discover lost Apple devices such as iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches, Macs, AirPods, AirTags, and some supported third-party accessories. The Find My feature has led to the improbable recovery of an Apple Watch belonging to a man named Jared Brick after it spent 18 months in the ocean. Brick had purchased two Apple Watches, one for himself and one for his son, to help them stay in touch during a family vacation celebrating his son's 11th birthday.

After arriving at the British Virgin Islands, Jared used his Apple Watch to do some scuba diving; the timepiece came in handy tracking how long Brick was submerged on his dives, some measuring 100 feet. That distance was well within the 164 feet depth (50 meters) that the Apple Watch is rated for underwater use.

On the last day in the Virgin Islands, Brick was jumping off boulders and swimming in a comparatively shallow body of water called The Baths on Virgin Gorda. Sometime later, he came to the realization that his Apple Watch was no longer on his wrist, and opening the Find My app on another Apple device, he reported his watch as lost. A year and a half later, in December 2023, Brick received a call from a local resident who lives near Virgin Gorda informing him that his Apple Watch had been found on the beach.

The guy who discovered Jared's Apple Watch charged the device and the lost message popped up on the screen revealing Brick's phone number. The man who found the watch, named Jonathan, took a photo of the Apple Watch and sent it to Brick. The device was then shipped by mail to its owner who admitted that he thought he would never see it again.

As the founder of a media company bearing his name (Brick House Media), Jared created a YouTube video that tells the entire story of an Apple Watch that was lost in the ocean for 18 months, discovered on the beach, charged up, and shipped 3,600 miles to its owner. Brick, in his video, not only thanked Jonathan for finding and returning the Apple Watch to him, he also thanked Apple "for making amazing technology that works."