A Caribbean Sea turtle has become a media star after filming pat of the 1,100-mile journey of a red Nikon Coolpix L18 camera from Aruba to Key West, Florida. The camera, lost last November by Royal Dutch Navy sergeant Dick de Bruin while exploring an underwater shipwreck off the coast of Aruba, was found six months later by U.S. Coast Guard investigator Paul Shultz, who spotted in when it washed ashore in Key West, Fla. Shultz, after some impressive detective work through some scuba sites, was able to return the camera to its owner. “This is a total shot in the dark,” he wrote. “I found a digital camera and waterproof case washed up here in Key West. I am trying to identify an owner so I can return it.” He uploaded images from the cam, hoping other divers could help identify the location, which they pinned as Aruba. An Aruban woman recognized the children in the photos Shultz had posted as former classmates of her son’s in Aruba. She contacted de Bruin and now they are all having their fifteen minutes of fame.

That includes the turtle, which apparently became entangled with the Nikon on January 15, according to camera records, turned it on, and took the home video (now a YouTube hit) in the vicinity of Honduras.

London’s Daily Mail takes the human interest route at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1286696/Home-video-filmed-TURTLE-divers-lost-camera-taken-1-100-mile-ocean-odyssey.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

For a more technical angle go to http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20007797-1.html