Kayakers reunited with long lost camera

Friday 22 February 2019

Two Jersey girls have been reunited with a camera that spent over two years underwater after it was lost off their kayak one summer, thanks to the kindness of a stranger, and the power of social media.

The two friends, Jenna Volpert and Elise Le Seelleur, never thought they would see the 'GoPro' or its contents again when it sunk into the sea at La Coupe after their kayak was flipped over by a rip tide in 2016.

However, beachgoer and father-of-two Clive Dunford came across the waterlogged, barnacled camera while he was at La Coupe with his family last week “looking for lobsters” and “trying to enjoy the sunshine".

Clive told Express that he “just looked on the ground and there was a GoPro just lying there on the rocks and the sand".

Pictured: Clive Dunford and his family who reunited the girls with their long lost GoPro (Clive Dunford).

Taking the camera home, Clive thought that he would see if any of its contents were salvageable. 

Undeterred by the “salt water” which poured out when he “opened up the back of the casing”, Clive “cleaned the card off” and miraculously on “the third or fourth attempt” managed to download all of the photos. It was at this point that Clive went about reuniting the camera with its owner.  

“I thought that they’ll definitely want these back,” Clive explained. Once looking through to pictures to see if he recognised anyone proved fruitless, he took to social media. 

“I just uploaded it – one short video and then one picture… and then within an hour they’d been found."

Pictured: Within an hour of posting on social media, Clive managed to track down the owners of the camera.

“It was really amazing… It’s actually quite a good story because it’s showing social media and Facebook in a good way,” Clive remarked.

The camera belongs to Jenna, but Elise told Express how it got lost in the first place.

Elise explained that it was “a nice sunny day” in July 2016 when she and Jenna decided to go out for a kayak. Setting off from Fliquet, the pair had made it round the headland to La Coupe when they got caught in a rip. 

“[We] eventually managed to get out and then got caught again and unfortunately the kayak got flipped over and everything got flipped out… the GoPro didn’t have the float on it so it sank.”

Pictured: Jenna (front) and Elise (behind) on the day they lost their 'GoPro' camera at La Coupe. (Jenna Volpert)

Luckily, both girls were safe, but Jenna’s camera, which contained over 500 pictures and bits of footage from her gap year spent travelling, was lost to the sea. 

Elise remembers Jenna being “quite upset that she’d lost all those photos” at the time.

Commenting on being reunited with the camera, Elise said: “I’d completely forgotten about the GoPro to be honest. It was only about 40 mins after [Clive] made the post that I’d been made aware of it.

"...It’s amazing and it’s nice to see Facebook used for some good – to reunite people with things."

Pictured: The two friends set out from Fliquet in their kayak and it was at La Coupe that they lost the camera. (Google Maps/Clive Dunford)

She added: “It was just complete shock really… two and a half years later we just had forgotten about it really and to see it pop up was amazing – I couldn’t believe it!

"We were both very shocked. I’m just glad [Jenna] has got her pictures back from her travels before that.”