ORONO – A pickup truck stolen Monday night from Lucky’s Landing on Pushaw Lake in Glenburn was hauled out of the water Tuesday at Gould Landing in Orono.

The truck, a silver 1994 Chevrolet S-10, was stolen from the home of its owner, Erwin Durant.

After an apparent joy ride around the lake, the truck somehow wound up in the drink, several yards offshore from the public boat launch at Gould Landing.

The pickup sat there, submerged, until it was spotted at about 1:30 p.m. Tuesday by two men who were returning from a sailboat ride.

Because there was no truck owner in sight, the boaters called for help, triggering a tense, but brief, search by a state police diver, a state game warden, and police and fire personnel from Orono and Old Town, among others.

Officials soon linked the vehicle to Durant, however, and notified him at about 2:30 p.m. that they had found his stolen truck.

The 79-year-old retired Navy man said he last had seen the pickup in his yard, where he’d parked it about 3 p.m. Monday after running errands. He didn’t know it was missing until he went out to get his newspaper at about 7:30 a.m. Tuesday.

Durant said his wife, Ruth, heard a loud bang outside about 10:15 the night before. Their dog barked once or twice but didn’t continue, so they thought nothing of it, he said.

After discovering the pickup missing, Durant checked his car and found a neighbor’s business card and a University of Maine parking pass inside. He later learned that his neighbor’s car had been broken into and that a GPS unit had been stolen. The business card and parking pass must have been dropped in Durant’s car when the thief or thieves looked inside it for valuables, he surmised.

On Tuesday afternoon, several people who live near Gould Landing dropped by to watch the recovery operation, including Patti Dudley, who lives two houses up from the boat launch.

Dudley said she heard some vehicles “racing around” about 5 a.m. Tuesday and heard from a neighbor that a small gray car was seen speeding away from the boat launch.

Durant said he believes he left the keys in the pickup’s ignition.

“I must have left them in the truck last night. Evidently I did, because the keys aren’t where I usually leave them. You get lax because nothing happens out here,” he said. “From now on, I’m locking my car and taking the keys inside.

“It was an old truck, a ’94, but it was in good shape,” Durant said, adding that he had been getting it ready for its annual inspection. “I just had a new windshield put in and four new tires.”

Despite the truck’s being submerged for a few hours, Durant said he was going to have it hauled back to his home and “see if I can get it running again.”

State police continue to investigate the incident.