How long will my gear survive underwater?

Hi everyone.

About a month ago, I lost my photo equipment underwater. Before you ask how it happened, it was really stupid. I took the strap off of my wrist to adjust something in my BP during the safety stop and forgot to put it back on. When I surfaced, the sea was a little rough and the thing slipped off of my hands.

Some experienced divers I know, instructors and such, having logged hundreds of dives in the dive site where I lost my stuff, have stated that there's no doubt we'll eventually find it. The captain of the only boat that takes divers to the spot is my friend, so I'm pretty sure I'll know if someone finds it.

I have dived about 20 times searching for it, with no success. The site is filled with big rocks, and I think the camera must be stuck in a hole somewhere.

It is a Cannon A620, with a Cannon Housing, Sea & Sea YS-25 strobe, with Fantasea tray and arm. I started to think it will be pointless, in the near future, to keep searching, as the equipment will probably be flooded with seawater. Or the batteries will have leaked.

What do you guys think? Will my stuff work when I find it?

It is all really frustrating. To a point diving hasn't been much fun lately.

Thanks.
Fernando

If its "sealed" its sealed. Your talking a LONG time before the seals SHOULD begin to break down, now recovering it is another matter, HOPEFULLY someone honest will find it and try to find you, but....Now if it broke on impact with said big rocks, its a salvage operation only at that point. Good luck, hope you find it intact and free of that nasty salt water.

If it's all intact, then recovering it will let you shoot again - after recharging.

If it's suffered a bump that has messed up the seal or cracked something, it's toast.

Camera systems can travel very far, very fast - even without noticeable current! It's like there are little merpeople down there swimming it away.

Good luck

Problem is if its neutrally bouyant or close to it then it may just float away. My camera flooded and I managed to claim it thru insurance. Is yours covered?

I was on a dive trip a couple years ago when a catch bag with camera and strobe inside it was accidently dropped from the surface into 40m of water. The site was marked with a GPS and the next day a 'search and recovery' team headed out to try and find the camera. Unbeliveably they actually found it and all was good.

I hope you manage to find yours.

Mel.b

the dive boat i was on last week found a camera floating in the keys. they downloaded the shots and the were 3months old and the camera was in great shape. sadly though, no idea of the owner.

There's a local diver here (monterey) that recovered a very old Nikonos from Pt Lobos....
I think the lenses are still usable.

I have no comment regarding the state of the equipment, should you ever find it. I can only comment that this really sucks, and that I hope you do, one day, find it.

God speed, amigo.

Ben_ca:

There's a local diver here (monterey) that recovered a very old Nikonos from Pt Lobos....
I think the lenses are still usable.

Click to expand...

I saw pictures of it. I don't think the lens was useable. The body was corroded away
to nothingness. The SB-103 flash was MAYBE salvageable.

I know of a Nik-V that survived about a year. The outer case was corroded, but the
guts were dry and were used to replair a differerent body that had flooded.

I know of a tank/BC/reg that were recovered after six months and looked like they could
be brought back to life, once they shooed out all the brittle stars.

Thank you for the kind words, guys.

I was doing my safety stop on some sort of plateau, of about 20 square meters, 6 meters deep. I believe the camera must have landed a couple of meters away from it. It is negatively buoyant. I also hope that it won't have traveled too far: my lucky guess is that it will be stuck inbetween the rocks, and thus will not move.

I made a terrible mistake on the day I lost it. Instead of comunicating the loss right away to the other people that were diving with me, so we could mark the spot, I descended again, to look for it with whatever air I had left. After thinking it over several times, I now believe we weren't looking for it on the right spot. Next time, I'll be able to reanalyze the place and rethink the search.

We'll be back to the site two weeks from now, and I'll keep my fingers crossed until then. There's a a local guy I know who's been diving the place for over 30 years. Edson, the fish, as he's known around the small town, told me a friend of his once lost a wedding ring close to where I lost my camera. The guy started crying, saying his marriage was going through a rough period and that it would be the end of it. Edson dove in search of the lost ring several times, and after a few weeks he ended up finding it. All my hope stands on this story.

The scenario is not the worst possible. Visibility at the site is about 15 meters, average, temperature is around 20º C and there's not much of a current. I'll let you know how it goes.

Fernando