Always check the camera

              Always check the camera

  On a recent dive In Manasquan Inlet I did something really stupid. I always wear my Gopro camera on my mask so I can video everything that happens. One thing I have to do in fill the space between the lens and the color filter with water. I do this by leaving the filter up in the frame and push it down after I am in the water.
   The dive started out just like any other, I dropped in and pushed the filter down and started looking around. I found a few sinkers and some fishing lures hung up on a piling sitting on the bottom, I stayed on the piling and swam down along it.
   The visibility was only 3-4 feet so it was slow going, just moving slowly over the bottom seeing what I could find. Just pass the end of the piling I came across a very large hand gun. It was a smith & Wesson 357. Just like the one Dirty Harry used in the movies.

    I thought what a great training video this was going to make. I started doing everything we learned in our evidence recovery class. I marked the location, I was video taping everything, I handled the gun like it was loaded and ended the dive.
    I swam the gun to the exit point and climbed out of the water and as I put the gun on the seawall I pulled off on mask and found out I had turned the camera off when I pushed filter down. So I got nothing!
   I radioed the police and they came down and I turned the gun over to them and filled them in as to where I had found it. Luckily I had done all the measurements from fixed points and could give a exact location.
   Lessons learned do as you are trained and always check the camera