When you lose an item on a trip, typically it's a goner. Giving up the missing pair of sunglasses, flip flops, or jewelry comes with the territory of being a traveler. One doesn't usually expect to find these lost items, let alone have them returned.
But that is exactly what happened to U.S. tourist Lindsay Crumbley Scallan of Newnan, Georgia, who lost her digital camera during a night scuba dive in Kaanapali, Hawaii in August 2007, according to Hawaii News Now.
"The seas were really rough," she told the paper. "There was a lot of sand stirred up. It was hard to see."
The next morning, after realizing her camera was gone, she returned to the beach, in hopes that it had floated somewhere up onto shore.
Naturally, she did not find the Canon PowerShot, which was encased in a plastic, waterproof covering.
More than five years later, after having drifted 5,000 miles away along the Pacific Ocean, the camera appeared on a beach in Taitung, on the east coast of Taiwan.
Two China Airlines staff members, Douglas Cheng and Tim Chuang, found the Canon on the sand, it was dotted with barnacles but still functioning, with batteries and memory card intact.
According to a recent CNN article, the two men spent a while studying the photos, trying to get any clue they could about the ownership of the apparatus. Finally, they traced a name on a catamaran, "Teralani 3" and, with more research, found the vessel was registered in Maui, Hawaii.
They then created the Facebook page titled, "China Airlines is Looking For You," replete with a few photos of Scallan they found on the camera. They even reached out to Hawaii News Now to find the owner.
Scallan found the Facebook page after a friend showed her of its existence.
"I just was floored that it was my camera," she said. "I couldn't believe it had floated so far, so long ago and the memory card was still intact."
China Airlines gave Scallan the option of flying to Taiwan to fetch her camera, but she's not quite sure she can get the time off from work.
Still, she admitted, she's curious to see what else the once-lost memory card holds.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
