Avid scuba divers Ken Kieley and his wife were in the water off Ogden Coast, British Columbia, Canada, on Sunday January 26, 2025, when they noticed a GoPro roughly 30 feet below the surface.
The couple were actually searching for fish and octopus when they saw the device. They picked it up and took it home. The camera had been flooded, but the memory card was in good shape, showing video footage dating back to 2016.
The most recent footage from the GoPro was taken on May 12, 2024, likely the day it fell to the bottom of the ocean.
“It was clearly on his head … he went to go down, and you could see the camera come off his head and it was falling,” he said. “When it landed, it landed face-up and a little while later you can see a crab approach the camera.”
“I know what it’s like to lose gear,” the Metchosin resident said, so he grabbed some still images, and a clip of the man’s voice from the videos and shared them across the Facebook account ‘Lost and Found in BC’ in the hope of returning the memories to their owner.
In less than 48 hours, the camera's owner had been found. The post ended up in front of the owner’s mother, who recognized her son from the voice clip.
“She said it sounded a lot like me, it looked a lot like me,” said Shay Lalor, the owner of the GoPro.
Lalor and Kieley met up on Tuesday this week to give the camera back to its owner.
“I thought maybe someone would find it but I thought the chances of me getting it back were pretty slim,” Lalor said.
“It’s shocking, it’s amazing, I’m stoked.”
As one of the best and most popular action cameras, it would appear that GoPros go missing in the ocean and get reunited with their owners on a regular basis, as an article on GoPro’s site entitled Reunited at Last: The Tales of Long Lost GoPros suggests.
Take a look at our guides to the best GoPro camera, the best GoPro alternatives, the best waterproof camera, and best memory cards, and the best recovery software for SD cards and photos.
