When Warrnambool's Thomas Halliwell, 15, lost his Apple watch off the breakwater last Thursday he thought it was gone for good.

It was like searching for a needle in a haystack, but in the depths of the dark ocean going only by feel, Mr Rantall managed to pull off the Christmas miracle of sorts two days before December 25.

Thomas had been fishing off the breakwater and later noticed his watch was missing. After searching through his bag he realised it had gone to the bottom of the bay when he'd jumped in for a swim.

His mum posted a message on Facebook in the hope that someone might find his watch, on the off chance that maybe he had dropped it somewhere on land.

Mr Rantall, also known as The Happy Diver, saw the post and offered to help.

And on Friday, after 53 minutes searching in 16 degree water muddied by both the dredging and floodwaters, he managed to find it.

Mr Rantall had been at the breakwater the day before Thomas had lost his watch and was going to dive down to remove rubbish - something he has done regularly - but the water was so dirty he decided against it.

So when the call out came about the watch his first thought was "there's no way we're going to find it in here because the visibility was just shocking".

He even told Thomas there was not much chance he would find it because it was just too hard to see. But he still tried, searching the floor of the bay at a depth of 3.4 metres about halfway along the breakwater.

"There was spots where you couldn't see anything. I'm feeling with my hand and skimming my hand over the sand," he said.

Mr Rantall said with dredging stirring up more rubbish and the river bringing floodwaters into the bay, the state of the water was "messed up at the moment".

But there was a few spots were there was a little bit of visibility, and that's where he eventually spotted Thomas' black watch about 40cms in front of him. "It was absolutely awesome to find it," he said. Thomas, who had saved up his money to buy the second-hand watch, said he was lucky to get it back.

"I thought he was just coming up for a break but then showed me the watch. I was pretty excited," he said.

The watch, which is waterproof, still works despite being on the bottom of the bay overnight. Mr Rantall recorded the dive and will soon upload it to his Youtube channel The Happy Diver.

It is not the first time he has searched for people's lost Apple watches in previous years.

"We've found two out of four," he said.

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