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American River Lost & Found

There's treasure in the Lower American River and Karl Bly is a treasure hunter.
 


There's treasure in the Lower American River and Karl Bly is a treasure hunter.

No, it's not gold—although he's from time to time found some. Bly's looking for cell phones and sunglasses—the errant losses of careless rafters and paddlers who, when entering the San Juan Rapids are suddenly jettisoned from their craft.

Cell phones fly to the left, sunglasses fly to the right, and a myriad of jewelry, lunches and water bottles scatter as the rafters are more concerned with saving themselves in the whitewater than hanging onto their screens and shades.

And so, the swirling stream scatters the bounty in the rapids and over time settles it downstream. Lost? Forgotten? Or an opportunity for Karl Bly's American River Lost & Found. Everyday during the rafting season, Bly is trolling the American River in his kayak, looking to find what others have lost. Why? To return what's lost to it's rightful owners.

So let's say you were peering through your designer shades, checking your email, oblivious to the impending San Juan Rapids, when a swirling current knocks you overboard. You swim back to the raft—but what has become of your shades and screen?

Who you gonna call? Well, if you ask around, the local gawkers will tell you to check on Facebook for American River Lost & Found—a site where Bly lists the treasures that he finds each day scavenging the depths of the American River.

"I have been out here kayaking and finding stuff on this river for 45 years and just recently realized that it would be much easier to return things if I had a social media account," Bly explained. "I started American River Lost and Found and I have been returning phones and wallets, sunglasses and all kinds of things."

"This year, I have found 41 cell phones," he noted. "I have found countless amounts of sunglasses."

It all started when at the age of five, he kayaked the American River with his dad. They paddled a Royak kayak—his dad paddling in the cockpit and young Karl sitting in the hatch.

Then his dad would don his SCUBA equipment and bail out leaving Karl to handle the boat. "I followed his air bubbles." He said. "That was my job."

 

 

 

 

 

Since then, it's continued as a family hobby. Karls siblings and children get into the treasure hunt whenever they can.

Karl basically paddles his kayak to a likely spot, then dons a face mask and leans into the water. He can see up to 20 feet in a river that goes from a foot to 35 feet in depth, typically 15 feet deep.

He collected so much stuff, for instance over 100 cell phones over the years—his first was a Blackberry. Amazingly, many of the phones still work, even after being submerged for six months. The newer ones are more likely to survive, Bly indicated.

Once they are dried and powered up, the lock screen often has an identifiable image.

"Like a cell phone that I found in the river. It had a driver's license in the pouch with it. So I covered up all the personal information and took a picture of the driver's license and the cell phone, and put it out there on Instagram."

He received an "amazing" response from the social media community.

"So I realize — wow! This really works to return stuff. It wasn't more than two months later that I found a GoPro camera. And when I took the memory card out from that one, and looked at it on my computer, it had over 1600 pictures on it. It was a cute couple traveling around the world – Thailand, Japan – just you name it they had been there."

"These pictures look like they were having so much fun. So I took 20 or so of the pictures and videos and posted them. And said, 'Hey, I'm looking for these people. They lost a camera.' That post got shared, I think it was 600,000 times, with 14 million views in three days. It went viral — worldwide viral."

A year after that, Karl started his Facebook page.

"I love it," he said. "It's addicting. It's an Easter egg hide when you find the stuff, and when you bring it home, some little tidbit of information about it leads you to the owner."

~ Al Zagofsky

 

     

 

 




 

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