Leigh Webber—the Bondi Treasure Hunter—is at it again.
In a video from April 2020—which has racked up more than 1.2 million views on YouTube—Leigh Webber, the Bondi Treasure Hunter himself—uses a powerful magnet to dredge the Oudezijds Voorburgwal, Amsterdam’s oldest canal.
If you follow the acclaimed treasure seeker—who takes his name from Bondi, Australia’s busiest beach—then you know there’s nothing more magnetic than his personality.
In the video, a group of eight orange-clad utility workers gather to watch Webber and a friend pull metal from the canal.
They even share their lunch with Webber, in exchange for being allowed in the video.
What’s on the menu? One of the Netherland’s famous giant pancakes.
“I just made a deal with these guys. I get a pancake if they get in the video.”
Before taking a giant bite, Webber douses his pancake liberally in the famous stroop, a syrup that features heavily in Dutch breakfast cuisine. It is typically made by boiling down fruit, most commonly apples.
“How good is that? Getting a pancake to keep up with all this treasure hunting. I love this stuff. You just never know who you’re going to meet.”
Among the best submerged findings of the Oudezijds Voorburgwal: three bikes in the first three casts—for a total of six bicycles, also an Amsertdam-themed Zippo brand lighter, an office chair, and a giant pile of coins.
Critics of Webber claim that coins are not actually magnetic, and that some of his findings might be rigged.
“Are you ready for the magnet vs. coins challenge?” Webber asks his partner. “Okay. Let’s do it.”
The treasure hunter proves the doubters wrong, demonstrating that coins are easily susceptible to the beast-like strength of his magnet.
“Look at that,” Webber exclaims, showing off the linked chain of magnetized money. “It’s actually magnetic all the way through!”
After the rusted remnants of an old office chair are pulled to the surface, Webber encounters his greatest challenge of the day: a piece of treasure so heavy that it requires three of the onlooking utility workers to come and help.
Their reward? Another rusty, barnacle encrusted bicycle.
Go figure.
In many of Webber’s videos, he travels around the Netherlands, pulling discarded bicycles out of the canals. As many as 15,000 bicycles are pulled out of the water each year, with people seeming to prefer throwing their broken bikes into the water, rather than disposing of them carefully.
In fact, Amsterdam’s local government has to regularly dredge up these discarded bikes in order to keep the canals safe and accessible.
You have be wondering—what kind of gear does an expert treasure hunter rely on to pull up tons of bicycles? When it comes to magnets, for Webber, the only right answer is the Beast.
“Everyday I get asked what magnets I use and recommend for Magnet fishing,” Webber is quoted as saying on the Magnetar website.
“My answer is get yourself a magnet from Magnetar. It doesn’t matter if you’re an expert magnet fisher looking to upgrade or a total beginner looking to buy your first magnet. I always recommend Magnetar.”
The Beast is a strong, 360° all-round fishing magnet, perfect for highly experienced magnet fishermen. This magnet has a combined pull force of 3080 pounds. It measures 80mm in diameter and weighs an easily portable 4.1 lbs.
It will attract all magnetic objects from afar even if they are round, rusty or submerged.
The Beast is so powerful that you must use extra caution when storing, transporting and using.
And if you think the life of a traveling treasure hunter is lonely, you’d be wrong. These days Webber travels with his girlfriend, Nikki, in their camper van, which they decked-out to include a shower, oven, a fridge, toilet, sunroof, diesel heater, and even a solar panel.
In a series of more recent videos, the Bondi Treasure Hunter and his crew spent a month roadtripping around Europe, visiting places like London and the Jurassic Beach on the South Coast of England, looking for dinosaur fossils.
He even uncovered a grenade at the world’s largest magnet fishing event. And a real cannon in the canals of Manchester.
