Hamptonites call this diver to find loss Rolexes

When hedge fund managers, college students or fashion influencers drop their Rolex in the water on their way to Sunset Beach, they call call Trebor Barry.

The local diver has recovered hundreds of valuables — phones, credit cards, platinum wedding bands, sunglasses, boat propellors, a $20,000 Rolex — over the last two decades in the waters from Gardiner’s Bay to Noyack Bay.

“I don’t advertise,” Barry, 59, told me. “All the harbor masters and dock masters already know me, but I introduce myself to some of the boat crews who are coming for the summer,”

While there are other divers-for hire in the Hamptons, Barry, who was born in Southhampton and raised in Sag Harbor, is hands down the go-to guy that everyone in the small boating community knows.

“Sag Harbor is the center of the universe for boating in the Hamptons, and Barry has been part of it for years,” said Beau Campsey, who runs a local marina and has called on Barry several times to retrieve phones that have gone overboard. (All have worked once they’ve dried out.)

Barry gets about ten requests a week for his services. Urgency is key, so whether he gets a call at 5 a.m. or 10 p.m., he’ll rush out in his 22-foot Boston Whaler to go looking for an item.

“I’m 24/7 — the only time you won’t get me is if I’m already underwater,” Barry told me. “I never take a day off June through September, and I’m always [just] 20 minutes out.”

He works alone and employs just a few pieces of equipment — a basic SCUBA kit, wetsuit and an underwater metal detector.

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Most of the time, though, he just uses his eyes and simple arithmetic. He’ll calculate the rough area where an item could be based on when and where it was dropped, then erect a diver’s flag on a buoy to alert nearby boats to stay away from the general area. He typically doesn’t have to dive any deeper than 15 feet.

He charges $200 if he finds whatever’s been lost, though some people are so thrilled when he recovers something with a high sentimental value, they’ll give him four figures.

If he doesn’t find an item, he’ll just charge $100, though that has only happened once in the last five years.

The one that got away was a small piece from a boat’s motor that was swept away by a current.

Barry, who also does some woodworking and inspection dives, demurred to say how much he makes each year from finding people’s lost items, but the job is lucrative enough that he spends the winter in Florida not working.

“Let’s just say I’m on the front lines of the trickle-down [economics] effect,” he said coyly.

Barry’s family has been working in marinas and sailing since the whaling days, so working on — and beneath — the water is in his blood. As a child, he was obsessed with the ocean and once drew a map of the underwater topography in Sag that still hangs on his fridge.

Between the recovery work and doing inspections, he dives daily. He estimates that he spend two weeks of the year submersed based on how many air tanks he goes through. 

“I am doing what I was meant to do,” he said. “It was pre-ordained in a weird way.”