Camera’s pictures reveal 1000-mile drift

The barnacle-encrusted housing was found on a beach in St John’s County.

After photos were downloaded, it became clear that the camera had originated from the Cayman Islands, about a thousand miles away.

Pictures clearly depicted the wreck of the decommissioned US warship Kittiwake, which was sunk off Seven Mile Beach on Grand Cayman in January as an artificial reef and diving attraction.

From images downloaded from the point-and-shoot Sealife camera, the wreck of the Kittiwake was clear with little algae present, suggesting that the dive occurred shortly after its sinking.

Based on this evidence, the camera will have been drifting for many months before it was finally recovered.

The search for its owner is now on.

A firm possibility is that the camera will have belonged to someone who stayed at Grand Cayman’s waterside Sunset House hotel and scuba diving resort, which serves many of the visitors who arrive to dive on the wreck.

The camera’s owner can contact its finder via Sunset House at http://sunsethouse.com, where further description and photographs from the “Kittiwake Camera Mystery” can be seen.

We have produced one of the photogrpahs here (see below, right).