Call Coast Guard agent Paul Shultz persistent, lucky and maybe a little obsessive when it comes to a good mystery.

The Key West resident used some old-fashioned police work using modern-day technology to find the owner of an underwater camera that washed ashore on Stock Island last month -- a camera that had floated some 1,200 miles from Aruba to the Florida Keys.

Shultz found the Nikon in an underwater housing while working an unrelated Coast Guard case at King's Pointe Marina on May 16, and as he studied the images on the digital card, he became committed to finding the owner in his spare time.

Many photographs were of a dive trip, but many others contained images of tow-headed children -- playing, cuddling on the couch with family members, mugging for the camera in a variety of costumes, and sitting down to a family meal.

"It was a good mystery," Shultz said. "And I wanted to solve it."

Not only did Shultz solve the puzzle, he struck up a friendship with the camera's owner, a sergeant in the Royal Netherlands Navy who had lost it last year while diving on a U.S. Navy shipwreck off Aruba. Sgt. Dick De Bruin and his comrades were removing artifacts to create an on-land memorial for the military men who died in World War II.

For six months, De Bruin thought his captured memories were lost forever, until this month when he got a call from Shultz.

"This is why I must come to Key West and drink a beer with Mr. Shultz and thank him personally," the Netherlands resident said from Aruba, where he is currently stationed. "Some of the pictures are very special to me and I've been on the radio and in the newspapers in Holland talking about this story and Mr. Shultz. It's quite amazing."

Unexpected clues

Shultz was walking near the King's Pointe Marina shore when he noticed the camera. It was covered in growth.

"My first thought was that it must belong to someone nearby, so I picked it up," Shultz said. "I figured it came off a dive boat or something in town, so I took it back to work to see if the pictures worked."

One picture of De Bruin and a dive buddy stood out, as well as a picture of some children in a school and a child in front of a Continental Airlines jet -- all images Shultz used to decipher the mystery.

But at first, Shultz was met with one cold lead after another.

The initial photos and questions Shultz posed on Internet scuba chat rooms yielded no leads. He kept at it, posting pictures and questions on various water-related message boards for weeks.

"No one knew," he said.

Shultz got a hit when an Internet poster commented that one of the pictures of school children contained Dutch phrases on signs in the background.

"Now I figured I had to be dealing with the Dutch Antilles," Shultz said.

His hunch was correct when an editor at the Aruba Today newspaper contacted Shultz after seeing one of his posts. She recognized the children as her own and De Bruin's, who attend the same school in Aruba, and the mystery was solved.

Shultz was relieved the owner was OK, given that the camera also contained video footage of a sea turtle mistaking it for a possible meal.

"When I first saw the video, I thought maybe the owner was attacked by a sea creature," Shultz said. "After about 30 seconds it was pretty clear a curious sea turtle must have turned the camera on after getting caught in the lanyard."

That may explain how the camera was able to drift such a distance, Shultz and De Bruin mused. It may have hitched a ride on a sea turtle that was swimming toward the Keys.

An expected party

After weeks of posting messages, researching the photos and making phone calls, Shultz was finally able to talk to De Bruin directly earlier this month. Shultz had no idea De Bruin was also in the military and that the underwater photos were taken for a World War II memorial scrapbook.

"We were both pretty amazed," Shultz said. "What a coincidence that we're both not only in the service, but in seafaring branches."

De Bruin recalled watching the camera drift away as he wrestled with raising an anchor from the sea floor.

"We were at depths that made chasing the camera impossible," De Bruin said. "It would have been dangerous to ascend so quickly. So I very much thought it was lost forever."

De Bruin's three-year tour in Aruba will end in July, and before he and his family rotate back to Holland, they are planning a side trip to Key West to thank the Coast Guard sleuth who returned their pictures. De Bruin said he can't wait to buy Shultz a beer.

"The family pictures and my pictures of this dive for our memorial were lost and I'm very happy for Mr. Shultz and what he did for us," De Bruin said. "It's incredible that he found me the way he did. That is the power of the Internet and his dedication."

Shultz said he would "do the same again. You never know. The pictures must be important to someone."

When the two new friends finally meet, you can bet they'll take a few photos, De Bruin said.

"We will make a few new pictures with the camera," he said laughing.