Cruise photos intact after camera hauled from seabed

A woman can be seen on the deck of the QM2, with the QE2 behind

A trawlerman is trying to trace the owner of a digital camera after it was hauled from the Atlantic seabed in his nets with the photos still intact.

Benito Estevez believes the camera was dropped overboard from the QM2 cruise liner in the middle of the Atlantic.

The camera's memory card revealed five photographs, including a woman posing on the deck of a ship, with the now out-of-service QE2 in the background.

Mr Estevez, of Spain, is now trying to trace the people in the pictures.

US tourists

The QE2 made its last ever voyage to Dubai in November 2008.

BBC South Transport Correspondent Paul Clifton says the ship the woman is posing on is the QM2, and the two liners sailed together from Southampton to New York in October 2008.

The couple may have been US tourists returning home after visiting Britain

It was the QE2's last ever transatlantic round trip between the two cities.

Mr Estevez caught the camera in his nets off the west coast of Europe, so the camera was probably lost in the early days of the crossing.

It may be that the couple are from the US, as one picture shows a man wearing a woolly tourist hat from Oxford.

Cunard, the shipping company that owns the QM2, said no-one had reported a lost camera and the firm had not been able to trace the people in the pictures.