Summer 2015. I hadn’t used my GoPro in months considering I really only break it out when I am adventure-ing. I decided to bring it with me to the Kittery Sluice Way to take a silly video while I was rushing under the bridge post-jump.
At Spruce Creek during an incoming high tide, you can actually jump off this bridge and get swept under to the other side; it feels like a water park since the tide is rushing so quickly through a small space. The video below is exactly where I jumped in, but this video was taken (summer 2016) at an outgoing low tide. During my jump, the water was rushing from left to right and the tide was a lot higher. This gives you a good visual of the fast moving water.
Anyway, I had a hand strap on, but no floatie. Rookie move. Here is the actual video footage of Sam and me getting ready to jump.
Then, it flies off my wrist. We run to the car and grab our snorkels (that we had ironically just bought), and set out to hunt for it. The water moves so fast and the bottom was covered in rocks, seaweed and huge crabs, so we found it nearly impossible to look for it in the rough (and eerie!) conditions. I called it a loss. I was mostly bummed because my pictures from Thailand were on the camera and were not backed up. Another rookie move.
Last week, an old co-worker tagged me, “Korina Schlieper?” in a photo. It was a picture (actually an unflattering selfie) of me in Thailand. ONE YEAR later a guy finds it while snorkeling, charges it up and looks at my pictures. He then posts a picture of me on Facebook to see if anyone can identify who I am. The post was shared 25 times and with help from my social network, made its way back to me.
I reached out to him via Facebook and just two days later the nice man dropped it off to me at my work. I cannot believe this thing was kicking around the bottom all winter and even with a newly chipped front, had zero damage to the actual camera. Though covered in salt, seaweed and barnacles, the camera is still 100%.
I wanted to write this post to share with everyone how durable GoPro cameras really are (one year on the sea floor through a New England winter!) and to pass on a positive story to remind us all that there are a lot of good people out there.
Word of advice. Buy the damn floatie for $20.
Korina Linda 