Divers Count the Riches Found in ‘Treasure Tide’

Greg Lacey tells a tale of the ones that got away.

As Lacey recalls it: There he was, flashlight in hand, wading in the Wednesday pre-dawn surf near his home off 10th Street in Sunset Beach. Bobbing in the water was the loot of the Treasure Tide.

Ones, fives, tens and twenties. Cold, hard, wet cash.

“We probably lost as much as we made,” Lacey said. “I saw some big bills out there, but you go to grab for them and a wave breaks and they get sucked under and you got to wait for the churning action” to bring the money back to the surface.

“About 6 o’clock, a couple of girls 14 or 15 years old came by and they started finding money,” he said. “They found over $300 the day before in the kelp.”

Skeptical?

Many people to whom Lacey, 33, and his brother Patrick, 21, have told their story simply dismiss it as a fish tale.

But drying Wednesday afternoon on Lacey’s kitchen counter was about $100 in assorted small bills that he swears he fished from churning surf and plucked from tangled kelp.

“We’re a little short,” he explained. “We had to buy some beer.”

Lacey, a professional diver, calls it the “Treasure Tide,” and he’s more interested in the riches it bears than in any explanation of why it happens or where the booty comes from. He estimates that “there’s been $900 to $1,000 found in the last two days” of this appearance of the phenomenon.

He was planning Wednesday to return to the beach early this morning to greet the Treasure Tide one more time.

“No lie about it; when that Treasure Tide comes in, it’s loaded,” Lacey said.

Just a few miles north along the coast, Seal Beach lifeguard Tim Seymour, a 12-year veteran of this stretch of sand, had no problem swallowing the Lacey yarn--hook, line and soggy bills.

“I’ve seen it,” said Seymour, who attributed the serendipitous event to seven-foot tides a week ago. “People come to the beach early in the morning and set up their towels close to the water, and the tide comes in later in the day and washes everything away. (Later) the tide comes in and washes it back in.”

The phenomenon has occurred at Seal Beach too, Seymour said.

“We’ll have upwards of 30 or 40 shoes, some in pairs; lots of wallets and blankets--everything that a normal person sets on his towel and gets washed away.”

Another beachgoer with firsthand experience is Todd Howard, 22, a clerk at Woody’s market on Pacific Coast Highway, near Lacey’s home.

“I’ve seen that happen before, back in the storms of ’83 in Surfside,” Howard said Wednesday. “I tried for a half hour and all I got was bruised shins. Wood and things (floating on the water) kept hitting me in the shins.”

When told the Lacey brothers had cashed in on the tide Tuesday and Wednesday, Howard’s eyes got big and he quickly made plans for after work.

“I’m out there,” he said.

Coast Guard Lt. Michael Parks said, “There are a number of plausible explanations. Usually after heavy rains is when this happens. When high tides come in, it usually happens. I’m sure there are dozens of explanations.”

But Parks’ main concern was that the money and debris might be the remnants of a shipwreck of which the Coast Guard was unaware. He said Wednesday the findings would be checked out.

Lacey says a Treasure Tide generally lasts only about three days.

“It’s pretty well picked over, but there may be another 200 or 300 bucks out there,” Lacey said.

“The people down here know about it, but they love to keep it quiet,” he said. Then in a confidential tone, he asked a reporter: “Can you hold the story one day?”

Lacey said there just may be one more day’s worth of greenback fishing in the surf.