Only July 5, YouTuber Francis Darracott decided to go fishing with his family as a way to celebrate his birthday. While it was fish they were looking for, what they ended up catching proved far more interesting.
On the first cast after moving to a new location, Darracott managed to hook a GoPro HERO 3 camera. The action camera appeared safe inside its waterproof housing, but after a year or so of being in the water, barnacles had attached themselves to the device and water had leaked through to the camera.
Upon returning home, Darracott cracked it open and cleaned it up in an attempt to get it working. Unfortunately, the salt water had corroded the internals of the camera, rendering it all but useless. What wasn’t ruined was the MicroSD card inside the camera.
After plugging the card into his computer, Darracott recovered the action camera’s final moments. Based on the video, it appears the original owner was taking a little dive into the ocean when the head mount fell off. The camera can be seen falling to the ocean floor, where it sat, even after a few attempts to recover it.
While sitting on the ocean floor, the GoPro recorded the seaweed moving about in the currents and the sand getting kicked up as it rolled. Not much else happened until a friendly little crab decided it wanted its 15 minutes of internet fame.
Despite the camera being beyond repair, Darracott is interested in reaching out to its original owner to return the final moments recorded by the GoPro. The video metadata shows it was captured on August 13, 2015.
If you happen to know anyone who lost a GoPro camera while diving off Lake Pier in Hamworthy, Poole, England, you might want to reach out to them. Tell them their GoPro, albeit not working, has been discovered.
No word on the crab’s fate, however.
