Sea turtle films self, becomes YouTube sensationMIAMI (AFP) – Move over James Cameron. A sea turtle found a waterproof camera in the Caribbean, somehow activated the device, filmed itself and is now a YouTube sensation.
Back in May US Coast Guard agent Paul Schultz found a digital camera in a waterproof case on a beach in Key West, Florida, and posted images he found on its memory chip on the Internet in an attempt to find its owner.
In a video clip dated January 2010 "a turtle came across the camera, and it's really hard to tell how, but it turns the camera on and recorded itself swimming with the camera," Schultz told AFP.
"When I saw the video, I thought first that someone was getting attacked by a sea creature," Schultz said.
"I thought that a diver was getting attacked," he said. However, he later realized that the camera was just hitching a ride with a sea turtle.
"The last thing the camera owner did was shoot a video underwater, and then it goes right into the next video with the camera turning around in the water," Schultz said.
The video can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E43sg-Ytt58.
The rest of the article here.
2 comments:
I found a camera and Ikelite waterproof housing washed ashore in Key West, FL. Pictures dated from November, 2009 indicate it floated all the way from Aruba over a period of 6 months. Two months in to the journey, this sea turtle came across it and probably tried to eat it, turning the camera on and recording himself. The owner has been located in Aruba and confirmed he lost it while diving off Aruba on November 11, 2009. The last thing the owner did was take a video, so the camera was in video mode. This incident with the turtle ocurred on January 15, 2010. The camera washed ashore in Key West on May 16, 2010 covered in growth.
Based on time, I estimate this video to have occurred in the vicinity of Honduras.
The camera is a Nikon Coolpix L18. The waterproof housing is an Ikelite.
Battery Life - The camera was powered by 2 AA batteries. When the owner lost the camera, it was either turned off, or the camera went in to battery saver mode and turned itself off. The camera stayed off until the turtle happened upon it 2 months later. Makes sense. The batteries would still be good, as apparently they were. Otherwise, this video would not exist.
This is not the best video in the world, but what do you want from a turtle? This video ends at the point the turtle and the camera separated. The video ran for another 15 minutes, looking straight up at the sky with water washiing over it. The video ends, I assume, because the batteries died. There was still room on the card.
Special thanks to the good people of Scubaboard.com, Cruisecritic.com, and Aruba.com for helping me find the owner. I could not have done it without their help.
Anyone interested in reading the case as it was solved, read here. This thread explains how we found the camera to be from Aruba and how we found the owner.
what a hoot....i kept expecting him to say something :)
xoxox
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