In the last three years, camera tech has traveled quite a ways, with Wi-Fi becoming standard, megapixels creeping up, and sensors pushing higher ISO limits. But one scuba diver’s camera has traveled in a literal sense, drifting 600 miles underneath the sea, and it still works.
While Adele Devonshire was diving near Berwickshire, Scotland, in July 2013, the clip carrying her Fujifilm point-and-shoot camera inside a waterproof case snapped. After a search, she wrote the camera off as gone for good.
But last week, a friend shared a social media post looking for the owner of a camera found in Sweden — and Devonshire was shocked to be looking at the photos from the camera she lost three years ago.
Lars Mossberg spotted the camera among some grass and seashells on the rocky coastline of Gullholmen, a fishing village so small that there aren’t any cars. While the outer case had some scratches, he found the camera was still in working order, with the photos intact as well, after he let the camera dry off before attempting to power it up.
Mossberg used clues from the camera’s 400 to 500 photos, including the dates and the British accents on the videos to decide how to find the owner. Just five hours after posting to the Facebook group Lost at Sea, Devonshire spotted the posting.
Based on where the camera was lost and where it was found, the camera traveled about 600 miles across the North Sea from Scotland to Sweden.
“To think that it had presumably been bobbing around in the sea for all that time — and it still works — is remarkable,” Devonshire told The Telegraph. “It just goes to show the power of the internet and the kindness of people. I never did buy a new one, so I’m really looking forward to getting it back. It has been on quite the journey.”
