Most stand up paddlers couldn't handle spending 5 months in Merimbula after the huge parties that go on every year at the Merimbula Classic (formerly Mambo). But this little GoPro has keep on chugging after being left behind at the 2011 competition by Stand Up Paddler - Justin Holland. 

The Merimbula newspaper published a story this week about two fisherman who came across a barnacle covered item in the back of their ute. How it got there, they do not know, but Danny and Scott Ballantyne of Pambula beach (down the road from Merimbula) came back from a fish one day, and noticed that someone had placed the camera in the back of their ute while they were out fishing. At the time, the men didn't know what it was, but took it home and cleaned off the barnacles to find a GoPro inside it's waterproof housing, dry as a bone. Obviously word about the legendary GoPro hasn't yet reached the fishing cirlces, because the pair had no idea what it was:

“We wanted to try and find out what it was so we took it to Camera House Merimbula where it was identified as a GoPro camera with a four hour film of eight segments covering surfboards, surf skis, action shots."

After a little bit of Sherlock Holmes style investigation, the pair managed to find the owner of the camera, by recognising his sponsors logos on the side of his van. A friend happened to recognise the Stand up paddler after meeting him in Merimbula the year before, and thus the camera was reunited with it's rightful owner.

Not going him empty handed, Hobie supplied the two guys with a heap of merchandise for tracking down it's owner. Nobody said if the GoPro still worked or not, but considering the durability of those little things - we wouldn't be surprised if Justin was out paddling next weekend with it! Lets just home there was some good footage on there from the competition! 

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