Divers Search For Hidden Golden Bars Off O.C. Coast

In the film Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, Orlando Bloom's character Will Turner states, "I'm not obsessed with treasure." Scuba divers off the coast of Laguna Beach might feel the same way as they spend days looking for "golden bars" placed by the Sport Chalet sporting goods chain as part of their annual treasure hunt.

Six of these bars have been hidden in various locations. The "golden bars" are actually T-bar weights painted gold, but they represent Sport Chalet gift cards worth $1,000, $3,000 or $5,000.

Three bars were placed off the coast of Southern California, and two have been found. Two other found bars were placed in Northern California and Arizona.

This leaves one bar unfound as of the posting of this article (Aug. 3). Which is why yesterday on Wednesday divers were stacked up like planes over LAX off the coast of Laguna Beach. They were searching for the remaining Sport Chalet "treasure bar."

Laguna Sea Dwellers Sherri Cubillos and Russ Follmer brought their friend and "rogue diver" Daniel O'Hara out to give the treasure hunt a try.

"We’re just going for our regular dive, but we know about the gold bar and we know that there’s one left because someone found the one at Shelly," Cubillos said, referring to the three-foot statue imbedded in the sand in about 30 feet of water off Shaw's Cove.

"It’s a T-bar weight painted gold," said Follmer, "and there’s still one hidden out there. It could be worth $1,000, $3,000 or $5,000. Sport Chalet planted it a week and a half ago."

The Sport Chalet website offered this clue: "One bar was found with Shelly. Keep your eyes on the reef, 117°47.953' W will help you judge the distance from the reef."

Danny Wynn has been searching for the "treasure bar" for a week. He is a frequent shopper at Sport Chalet, and he found out about the treasure hunt. He heard about the new clue Tuesday morning.

Amber Morales joined Wynn on the dive.

"I've only been searching since today. Danny grabbed me." said Morales. "This is fun!"

Kevin Moynihan and his friends Rick Watkins and Mike Brown came out of the water empty-handed. Moynihan has been searching for almost two weeks.

"We didn't find the treasure, but it was a beautiful dive," said Moynihan. "The dive was awesome. There's great visibility. It’s the best. The surge is light and it was easy to go through 'The Arch.' There are a lot of big garibaldi and some sea bass."

Watkins said, "'The Arch' is an underwater feature out there that usually you can’t get through."

"So we were looking [for the golden bar] on the other side over there away from everyone else," Brown said. "There’s a lot of people out there looking for it."

"The water temperature, though," said Brown, "was off-the-charts cold. It's 59 degrees out there. It's like winter diving."

Keith Townsend and Shenoa Petersen also came out of the water empty-handed.

"I’ve been here about seven days in a row," said Townsend.

"We saw a lot of cool stuff, though, like starfish," Petersen reported.

"Yeah," responded Townsend. "It’s always a good time."