So I have been filming lots of scenery here in Borneo, over 6hrs worth for this winters green screen backgrounds.
Anyway, one day I was filming with both camcorders, my good one was on my tripod and the waterproof camera was sitting on the railing of the walkway crossing over the lake. I was filming the beautiful weeping willow and its reflection in the pond. IThen to my horror, I saw the camera start teetering on the railing from vibration caused by someone walking by so I dove toward the camera to catch it before it fell over into the water. Too late – kaaa-plop! It dropped in and sank right to the bottom to the 10′ deep lake. 5 hours of filming from 3/4 of my trip sank to the bottom of the lake in 1 second -aaaaaargh!! They had a pool net but it was way too short to do any good. By this time, the entire staff had heard of my plight and they gathered around. After probing with a bamboo pole to see it was way too deep to fish out with the pool net, one of the staff took his sandals and shirt off and waded right into the leech and mosquito infested lake!! I had completely written off the camera by this point and my jaw dropped and he dove down to the bottom and pulled up the camera on the first try! It was still filming!!!
I gave him a hearty thank you and had to almost force him to take a tip. You would guess from the way he acted that it was his daily duty at the resort to dive in and get belongings that careless tourists drop into the lake.
The footage of the camera falling into the late and its retreival 45 min later by the staff will be quite amusing