Lost at Sea: A Camera Resurfaces Two Years After a Shipwreck — With Its Photos Intact
In an extraordinary tale of endurance and coincidence, a camera lost in a shipwreck off the west coast of Vancouver Island has resurfaced two years later—its memory card and treasured photographs miraculously intact.
The camera belonged to Vancouver artist Paul Burgoyne, who in 2012 endured a devastating shipwreck when his boat, The Bootlegger, sank during a 500-kilometer journey from Vancouver to his summer home in Tahsis, British Columbia. The accident claimed his boat and all of his belongings, including his beloved camera filled with family memories.
“That just shocked me,” Burgoyne said. “Getting the camera—or even the photos—back is really quite wonderful.”
Two years later, in May, fate intervened. While conducting research dives off Aguilar Point, British Columbia, Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre students Tella Osler and Beau Doherty, accompanied by Diving and Safety Officer Siobhan Gray, stumbled upon something unexpected on the ocean floor—Burgoyne’s long-lost camera, resting 12 meters below the surface.
Marine ecology professor Isabelle M. Côté of Simon Fraser University examined the find and noted that the camera was covered in marine life, a testament to nature’s remarkable ability to thrive even in the most unlikely environments.
To everyone’s surprise, the Lexar Platinum II 8GB memory card inside the camera still worked perfectly. When Côté reviewed the images, she discovered a family portrait among them and decided to post it online in hopes of identifying the owner.
By sheer coincidence, a member of the Bamfield Coast Guard Station recognized Burgoyne in the photo—he had, in fact, been one of the rescuers who saved him during the original shipwreck. That recognition set in motion a heartwarming reunion between Burgoyne and his long-lost photographs.
“I have a new respect for these electronics,” Burgoyne said with a laugh. “You throw most of it away every couple of years, but that little memory card—now that’s an amazing piece of technology.”
The discovery brought back vivid memories of the wreck. Burgoyne recalled the calm of that day, the mistaken reliance on autopilot, and the sudden chaos that followed. Less than an hour after he captured his final photographs, The Bootlegger went down—taking with it priceless images, including a family gathering to scatter his parents’ ashes at Ontario’s Lake of the Woods and a video of the stormy seas leading up to the disaster.
This incredible recovery serves as both a testament to the resilience of technology and a reminder of the unexpected turns of fate—where something once thought lost to the ocean depths found its way home, carrying with it memories that refused to fade.
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