Diver Develops Film From Camera Found At Bottom Of Sea, Freezes Up When He Sees Face

**Note: We are republishing this story, which originally made headlines in May 2014.**

In a heartwarming twist of fate, a camera lost in a 2012 shipwreck off Vancouver Island has been miraculously recovered—memory card intact—two years later. The camera belonged to Vancouver artist Paul Burgoyne, who lost it when his boat, the *Bootlegger*, sank during a 500-kilometer voyage to his summer home in Tahsis, British Columbia.

“I was shocked,” Burgoyne said. “Getting the camera or the photos back—that’s really quite wonderful.”

In May 2014, university students Tella Osler and Beau Doherty, along with diving officer Siobhan Gray from the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre, discovered the camera 12 meters below the ocean’s surface near Aguilar Point. Marine Ecology professor Isabelle M. Côté noted that the camera had become a mini-ecosystem, hosting sea life on its casing.

Even more astonishing was the survival of the Lexar Platinum II 8 GB memory card. Côté posted a recovered family photo online in hopes of finding its owner. Remarkably, a Bamfield coast guard member who had rescued Burgoyne during the original shipwreck recognized him in the image—leading to the long-awaited reunion.

Burgoyne, reflecting on the ordeal, recalled moments before the wreck, the unexpected chaos, and the precious images lost to the sea—photos of family, a ceremony scattering his parents’ ashes, and footage of turbulent waters.

“It’s incredible,” he said. “That tiny card held onto everything.”

This recovery is not just a testament to technological resilience—but to the enduring power of memory, luck, and human connection beneath the waves.