Message-in-a-Bottle - Launched / Found?

[R2boat]

My wife and I have been cruising full time for the past 18 years and in that time we have recovered 3 bottles...one from a cruise ship headed to the Caribbean that we found 3 weeks later in the Bahamas, another on Sapelo Island, Ga. from a guy delivering a boat out of Maryland with a message to his girl friend. But the best we found was on Stocking Island, GT, Bahamas. It contained several letters from 3rd graders from a Georgia school teacher. My wife got some info together as to where we found it, date and lat and long and sent it off with some info from the local tourist office. Shortly thereafter we got an email from a reporter for a small town Ga. newspaper ?Macon. Turned out the teacher had been doing this for years, giving the student who was going the furthest for his summer vacation all the letters from his classmates to throw into the sea. Our bottle has sent overboard at Martha's Vineyard. Now it did have quite a few barnacles on it but the only way it could have made the trip was to cross the N, Atlantic, down the coast of France and back to the Caribbean. I confirmed this with a guy named Curtis Ebbsmeyer, an oceanographer on the west coast. Most amazing is this teacher had been doing this for 30 years and was retiring and this was the only bottle that had ever been found.

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by R2boat

My wife and I have been cruising full time for the past 18 years and in that time we have recovered 3 bottles...one from a cruise ship headed to the Caribbean that we found 3 weeks later in the Bahamas, another on Sapelo Island, Ga. from a guy delivering a boat out of Maryland with a message to his girl friend. But the best we found was on Stocking Island, GT, Bahamas. It contained several letters from 3rd graders from a Georgia school teacher. My wife got some info together as to where we found it, date and lat and long and sent it off with some info from the local tourist office. Shortly thereafter we got an email from a reporter for a small town Ga. newspaper ?Macon. Turned out the teacher had been doing this for years, giving the student who was going the furthest for his summer vacation all the letters from his classmates to throw into the sea. Our bottle has sent overboard at Martha's Vineyard. Now it did have quite a few barnacles on it but the only way it could have made the trip was to cross the N, Atlantic, down the coast of France and back to the Caribbean. I confirmed this with a guy named Curtis Ebbsmeyer, an oceanographer on the west coast. Most amazing is this teacher had been doing this for 30 years and was retiring and this was the only bottle that had ever been found.

Thanks!

[cd66312]

Not all messages are meant to be found...

https://youtu.be/YIxUdu6bxGo?t=10

[Epikur]

Nice thread!

I used to work on an offshore platform in the German North Sea. I threw some messages to my daughter and friends into the sea. The return rate was 30 - 50 %.
One was washed up on the Orkneys and an other half the way up the Norwegian coast.

Maybe some are still waiting to be found...

[wolfgal]

old thread revived...

not exactly a bottle story but definitely a message-at-sea story...

it happened a few years ago as i was doing an early morn walk on the beach here in normandy (france). i picked up a round stick wrapped tightly with many tight layers of tape. in a tiny space, there was a bit of plastic visible, and a tad of tinfoil to be seen through that. my immediate thought was that it was something quite illegal that had gotten lost in some sort of exchange at sea that ended in a mishap of some kind...

as i took it back to my place, i became more and more convinced that it was something quite illegal-n-expensive and began pondering... what i should do with it? i couldn't turn it in, because this is france: no need to get myself in trouble. i could perhaps get in touch with someone who knew someone and make a buck (more for my one-day boat!!!)... or maybe just keep it until someone who wants it comes along. i was super excited about this amazing find, was just hoping it was not the heavy-duty stuff...

anyway, i got it back to my place and cut off the thick tight tape and plastic layer and many layers of tinfoil..., which took forever: someone had spent a long time wrapping this up! ... only to find a black candle with the word, satan, carved into the side, near the base.

as i realised what it was, my imagination suddenly went in slow motion and i felt a wave of yuck pass through me. this was entirely unexpected, and even though i'm not one who was raised to fear this or that or the other religion-wise, i did feel a bit queasy. to shake the feeling, i got rid of it right away.

to this day, my hope is that some kid with black socks and a chip on his/her shoulder threw this in the sea, in an effort to just get back at the wrongs of his/her life, ...somehow. but my feeling is that the candle was one of many... a part of a ceremony of some kind.

even though i have long shaken the yuck feeling, i am aware of how the trick now is to keep myself from thinking twice if/when i do find a message in a bottle...


wolfie

[nonav]

Great stories, folks!

Mid 70s I dropped a note in a bottle from Brant Point light during an outgoing tide.

A
Phone call a couple months later, from a gentleman in England no less, asked me to stop polluting his beach.

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by nonav

Great stories, folks!

Mid 70s I dropped a note in a bottle from Brant Point light during an outgoing tide.

A
Phone call a couple months later, from a gentleman in England no less, asked me to stop polluting his beach.

Loved it!

[nonav]

Originally Posted by Cadence

Loved it!

It was one of the more unusual calls I’ve had over the years!

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by nonav

It was one of the more unusual calls I’ve had over the years!

I would imagine so. He must have been one crochety old bastard. I think I would have added a note, tossed it back in, and tried to make it a chain letter.

[Dogscout]

I threw an old Copenhagen can iff the back of a greek ferry back in 1990 or so. Im back in greece but still haven't found it yet.

[flightlead404]

I hate to be a Debbie Downer but why do cruisers, most of whom would complain about trash washing up in anchorages, and some of whom actually seem to care about the environment, seem to think that once a message is in a bottle, or a note tied to a cluster of balloons, its no longer trash or littering to toss it overboard?

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by flightlead404

I hate to be a Debbie Downer but why do cruisers, most of whom would complain about trash washing up in anchorages, and some of whom actually seem to care about the environment, seem to think that once a message is in a bottle, or a note tied to a cluster of balloons, its no longer trash or littering to toss it overboard?

It's a drop in the bucket so to speak! It might even be useful seeing what the currents reveal. Lighten up! Very few do it.

[flightlead404]

Originally Posted by Cadence

It's a drop in the bucket so to speak! It might even be useful seeing what the currents reveal. Lighten up! Very few do it.

"Its a drop in a bucket" means it's ok?

Isn't it all just a drop in the bucket? But when there's enough drops, its a bucket full.

It just doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever.

If you're having a beer on in the cockpit do you just toss your empty over the side?

Littering is littering.

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by flightlead404

"Its a drop in a bucket" means it's ok?

Isn't it all just a drop in the bucket? But when there's enough drops, its a bucket full.

It just doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever.

If you're having a beer on in the cockpit do you just toss your empty over the side?

Littering is littering.

You are taking it extremes. Maybe disposing of my mother's ashes on an outgoing tide was littering?

[Therapy]

Isn't glass just sand in a different form?