Originally Posted by
slawecki
i don't see why it will be so very hard to find that "whatever it is". the thing is in less than 100' of water(unless those snorkelers are pros) and the area covered by snorkelers is usually very limited(seldom over couple hundred yards in any one direction).
"ocean floor" implies depth of hundreds of feet. that is not the case in that photo.
If they were on a boat that used a fixed mooring, then the search area is reasonable. But from some of the news reports, it sounds like they might have been snorkeling from shore and don't recall exactly where - that makes for an extremely large search area. Takes a lot longer to search underwater than on land (in this area, I do have specific expertise
).
If they were using a cheap disposable underwater camera, the depth is probably no more than 30' based on the lighting and the areas snorkelers tend to stay. But the depth isn't really the challenge, it's the search area.