The incredibly re-appearing Minolta...

Long story... sorry. ;-)

It was the middle of last summer and some friends of mine whom are newbie divers wanted to go diving/camping up in Tobermory, Ontario. We filled up the cars with appropriate dive and camping gear, and off we went on a nice balmy friday afternoon. We set up our tents / campsite, and headed out to the divestore in downtown Tobermory the next morning. I was the most experienced diver with about 60 dives under my belt at the time.

My friends get kitted out with rental gear, and we head down to the harbour to load onto the boat.

Now, I was buddied up with 'B', a wee slip of a lass whom, while she WAS an experienced diver, had never dived locally in Ontario, which can have temps well down in the 40's, even into the summer, under the thermoclines. She had about 50 dives, IIRC. She also had an exotic 'adventure' dive while getting certified down in Aus, but this IS a family-friendly board, so that story will remain untold. ;-)

My friend 'M' was buddied up with 'C', and friends of theirs, 'D' and 'L', were buddied up as well.
'M' has always had a bit of a thing for photography, and so had bought a housing for his tiny Minolta credit-card type P&S digital camera. The housing attached to his wrist by a shoe-lace thickness lanyard. I distinctly remember telling him to get a snappy coil at some point.

Anyways, long story short(er), the first dive site was a bit of a mess; 'B' had no issues whatsoever in cold water, while 'C', 'L' and 'D' were complete and utter idjiots. newbie divers whom were barely post-certified, and I'm not entirely sure that they even should have been after seeing them in the water.

During the Fun & Games at the surface, 'C' kicked 'M's camera with a fin... causing the lanyard to snap, and off into the darkness of Georgian Bay sinks the $800 CDN camera/housing combo.

After we got the skill-impaired back onto the boat, 'M', 'B' and myself did a cursory search, but alas, no camera to be found. 'M' wanted me to drop my camera so we could see where it ended up but I graciously declined. ;-)

We went on to the second and third dives of the day, however we changed the original plan in order to make them in nice, shallow and protected bays where there were still some wrecks. More importantly, the conditions were as benign as possible as we had a impromptu Basic Scuba Skills clinic. (On a side note, this is probably what motivated me more than anything towards getting my Rescue and now Divemaster ratings, which I'm now about halfway through... DMIT! :-D

Interesting weekend all around, including the games of 'I Never' around the campfire in the evening, but I digress... 'M' ends up buying the exact same camera and housing again, though I swear I tried to talk him into something in the Canon or Olympus lines. *sigh*

Fast forward to yesterday, almost a year later.

This spring, while putting down the moorings for the various wrecks up at Tobermory (Fathom Five Underwater Reserve), a dive shop came across 'M's camera... scratched up to be sure after spending almost a year on the bottom in the rocks and silt and mud, but not flooded. They took it back to the shop, opened it up and voila! It actually turned on. Well, briefly, from what I understand. They took out the card, and looked at the pictures... 'M' had taken one of the boat before boarding, and using the time/date stamp on the file, after contacting the operator, found out whom had chartered the boat that weekend. And, so 'M' gets a phone call yesterday. And I get an email that starts out "Y'all ain't gonna believe this shit..."

I think he should contact Minolta... that's a customer success story if I've ever heard one. ;-)

Regards,

Imp;)