A Camera Lost at the Bottom of the Sea Finds Its Owner, Three Years Later

When a lost camera washed up on a beach in Taiwan, it was covered with so many barnacles that it looked like a rock.

Miraculously, it was still intact, dry inside, and in working condition thanks to a waterproof case that definitely deserves a five-star review on Amazon. A group of schoolchildren and their teacher discovered the camera while on an outing to clean up the beach, the BBC reports. The teacher, Park Lee, and his students decided to get the film developed and upload the pictures to Facebook in hopes of finding who the camera had belonged to. The post went viral and the owner was identified in just a day.

The owner of the camera was Serina Tsubakihara, a Japanese university student who had lost it in September 2015 while vacationing on the island of Ishigaki, Okinawa, Japan—155 miles from where it was found. She was scuba diving and snapping underwater pics when she dropped the camera into the depths to come to the aid of a friend who had run out of air. Over the next three years, the camera went on a long underwater journey that took it all the way to Taiwan.

Lee told the BBC that the class was unsure whether it was a violation of privacy to look at the photos and post them on Facebook, but it seemed like the only way to find the owner. After seeing that some of the pictures were from Japan, they guessed that the owner might be Japanese and posted their online message in Japanese and Chinese. Ultimately, the post got over 10,000 shares.

"I am so lucky and happy to have this miracle opportunity to feel kindness of people in my life," Tsubakihara told the BBC. "Those pictures remind me of old memories and brought me back to those." She plans to go to Taiwan in June to pick up her camera and thank its saviors.

[h/t BBC News]