Owner found! The magical camera washed ashore in Taitung connects with a teenage girl from Georgia, USA across the ocean.

Reported by Yu Ru / Taipei

Recently, ETtoday and EBC News Cloud reported that a China Airlines employee, while visiting their hometown in Taitung during the Lunar New Year, found a camera washed ashore from over 8,000 kilometers away in Hawaii. The memory card held 200 photos, many featuring a blonde, blue-eyed girl, who was believed to be the camera’s owner. After two days of searching across the ocean, it was reported today (25th) that the owner has been found: Miss Lindsay Crumbley Scallan from Georgia, USA, is the owner of this “Life of Pi”-style drifting camera.


▲ The diving camera that drifted for over 2,000 days has finally found its owner — Ms. Lindsay Crumbley Scallan from Georgia, USA. (Photo / from Lindsay Crumbley Scallan’s Facebook)

Zheng Mingqiu, an employee of China Airlines, and his family were visiting the beach in Taitung on the fourth day of the Lunar New Year when they accidentally picked up a camera. After a preliminary rinse, some white coral that had hardened onto the casing was still visible, clearly showing that it had been drifting and enduring the Pacific Ocean for over five years. More amazingly, after opening the plastic casing, they found that the internal body and battery of the camera had not rusted at all.

Zheng Mingqiu removed the slightly damp SD card and checked the photos. They were taken in August 2007 during a dive in Maui. It is believed the camera was washed away by waves at that time. Finding the owner became a major challenge. If it had drifted along ocean currents, nearby islands including Green Island and Australia were possible sources. Eventually, it was confirmed to have come from Hawaii. Calculations show the camera had drifted at least 8,000 kilometers across the sea for nearly 2,000 days.

 
▲ The camera and memory card that drifted at least 8,000 kilometers across the sea. (Photo / Provided by EBC News)
To uncover where the camera’s owner had stayed in this beautiful holiday destination, they spent hours carefully studying the photo contents for any clues. Finally, one photo revealed the name of a yacht — “Teralani 3.” An online search showed that the “Teralani 3” is a yacht based in Maui, Hawaii, confirming that the diving camera likely came from Maui, Hawaii.

After the news was released, media both domestically and internationally scrambled to report on it. Hawaiian TV stations and the British Daily Mail also covered the story. China Airlines even set up a dedicated Facebook fan page to assist in the search. A friend of the camera’s owner saw the reports and immediately emailed the local Hawaiian TV anchor who covered the story, revealing that the owner was his high school classmate from Georgia, and that the friends in the photos were also classmates. He also provided the owner’s Facebook. With this information, Hawaiian media quickly contacted Lindsay Scallan and confirmed her identity as the camera’s owner via video call.

Lindsay Crumbley Scallan, upon finding her camera, said in an interview with a Hawaiian TV station: “I’m truly shocked that they found my camera and all the photos inside. I can’t believe the memory card is still readable after drifting so far and for so long — it’s amazing!”

China Airlines has now contacted Lindsay Crumbley Scallan and invited her to Taiwan to retrieve her precious Hawaiian memories and to share the warm and friendly stories from Taiwan with her hometown.