Recently, Richard Kaplan posted a comment in which he said, “I always include the date and place I send bottles from.”  I responded, saying, “the business card I found didn’t have a date or place!”

Turns out, I was WRONG!

I was drifting off to sleep the other night, and Richard’s claim was on my mind.  So, I got up and scrutinized his message in a bottle once more.  I don’t know how I missed it before, but through the wavy green glass, I could see impressions left by a pen on the back of Richard’s card.

Today, for the first time ever, I took Richard’s card out of its bottle.  By tilting the card to catch the early morning sunlight, I was able to decipher the impressions:

It reads:

“Please contact me if you find this bottle.  Costa Magica.  Friday, February 9^th, 2007”

Just for reference, here’s what it looks like straight on in normal light (photo taken with flash):

I found it a few months later in May of 2007, and met Richard in 2009.

It’s funny…all the CSI work I do to read and preserve messages—using black lights, gloves, tweezers, etc.—and in the end, the best tool is often a little early morning light.