Missing watch floats 150 miles to Irish beach

A sports watch lost by a swimmer off the coast of west Wales has reappeared 150 miles away in an Irish town.

Martina Morgan, originally from South Africa, was swimming with her friends in Tenby in early April when she noticed her Garmin watch, secured to a flotation device, had come loose.

Although she considered swimming after it as it drifted out to sea, her friends persuaded her to let it go.

To her surprise, three weeks later she received a call from beach artist Sean Corcoran, who had discovered the watch in a small bay called Ladies Cove near Waterford, in south east Ireland.

At first, Ms Morgan noticed "something bobbing away" in the water, but assumed it was another swimmer.

She then realised the belt holding her watch around her waist had come undone.

Ms Morgan said: "It was a Christmas present from my husband so I was pretty annoyed.

"But it was too far out for me, so I just had to wave goodbye to it."

Ms Morgan and her husband, Ed, did not expect to see it again, but received a call from an Irish number three weeks later.

Environmental artist Mr Corcoran, who "spends a lot of time on the shore", said he had to climb down a cliff to reach the beach where he found the watch.

Mr Corcoran said: "I was curious as to where it had come from, it was like a message in a bottle.

"When I got it home I pressed a button on the watch and the recharge symbol came up so I knew it worked.

"I was surprised it had only been in the water three weeks, it looked like it had spent several months in the sun."

Mr Corcoran asked for help tracking the owner on a local Facebook page called "I am Waterford" and was soon inundated with calls - he had not realised the watch also had Ed's mobile number on it.

He said: "As soon as I posted it online hundreds of people replied saying it was a UK number, it took just 20 minutes to make contact with Ed and Martina.

"I wondered if it belonged to a swimmer who was lost and there was a moment of trepidation until Ed clarified that everything was fine and Martina was ok.

"I was very relieved."

Mr Corcoran later updated his post to say the owner of the watch had been found.

The post racked up more than 250,000 views in less than 24 hours.

He said: "If a quarter of a million people are looking at it, it shows people are craving good news."

The story has also been shared by the RNLI teams in Tenby and Waterford to highlight the importance of buoyancy aids for safety.

Mr Corcoran said the watch will be posted back to Ms Morgan on Tuesday.

"I am very grateful to the Irish people and especially to Sean," Ms Morgan said.

"I will carry on swimming with it, it's the easiest way to record where you have been and what distance you have done."