The bright red, housed Nikon compact camera was lost by scuba diver Dick de Bruin, a sergeant in the Dutch navy, around the turn of the year off the Dutch island of Aruba, in the Caribbean.
It was found by US Coastguard Paul Shultz a month ago, knocking about amongst rocks at a marina in Florida's Key West.
The housing, though encrusted, remained intact after its long journey and the camera worked perfectly.
Amongst material recorded were pictures of two men preparing to dive, what looked like a family on a home sofa, and an unidentified object on the seabed.
A video clip showed churning water and what appeared to be a turtle flipper very close to the camera.
Going on to the internet site ScubaBoard.com as a chat contributor, Shultz asked where the pictures might have originated.
He soon got responses saying that the location was Aruba.
One picture showed a poster in Dutch and another the tail number of a plane which, online research showed, was on the island the day the picture was taken.
Shultz now posted the photos on two travel sites, Aruba.com and Cruisecritic.com. Bingo.
A woman on Aruba made contact when she realised that the youngsters in the family shot went to school with her child.
De Bruin, reportedly both highly amused and deeply impressed by Shultz’s skills as an internet sleuth, was tracked soon afterward.
It later transpired that the unidentified object on the seafloor was an anchor lost from the WW2 destroyer USS Powell.
The Dutch diving team was salvaging it for use as a land memorial.
Remarkably, the turtle video clip is thought to have resulted from the creature playing with the camera and pressing the record button.
The camera had been in video mode when lost.
It may have travelled even further than the 1100-mile direct line from Aruba to Key West, if it had entered the Loop Current.
The camera would then have passed Belize, the Yucatan peninsula and western Cuba, before being whisked on the Gulf Stream to Key West.
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