STANLEY – Tossed into the sea by a sailor on a yacht in the Atlantic ocean, a message in a bottle drifted across the seas for five years.
Some 8000 kilometers later, it washed up on a Northland beach in New Zealand. A couple were walking along the waterfront near their home when the corked wine bottle caught their eye. Inside was a letter thrown into the sea near the Falkland Islands, penned on January 20, 2012.
The couple, who wished to remain anonymous, were now trying to track down the sender. They were surprised to find the paper and cork perfectly intact, though they had to smash the bottle to get it out.
The letter was written by a man from Scotland who was sailing a yacht through the Atlantic. He had put the message in the bottle and threw it overboard on behalf of his three grandchildren, the letter reads.
“This message was dropped into the south Atlantic, 300 miles south west of the Falkland Islands, launched by [name] on Friday, January 20 2012,” he wrote.
“If found, we would love to hear from the finder, when and where found.”
The woman’s husband had passed by the bottle and back-tracked when he saw something tucked inside. “My husband finds treasures all the time, he’s got a pretty sharp eye for stuff,” she said.
Having lived on the beach for 30 years the couple have found countless buoys, “shipwreck stuff” and pieces of amber glass scattered along the shore. But this was something else altogether. “It’s quite exciting, really,” she said.
The woman and her daughter were using the names from the letter to search for the man and his grandchildren on social media, and planned to pen a letter of their own to the address given in Scotland.–MercoPress
