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  • Message in a Bottle Songs, Stories & Pop Culture
    • Message in a Bottle Lyrics and Meaning – Sting and the Police
    • Taylor Swift’s Message in a Bottle Lyrics and Meaning
    • Jim Croce – Time in a Bottle Lyrics & Meaning
    • Zac Brown Band’s Message in a Bottle: Let it Go Lyrics and Meaning
    • Too Late to be Saved Lyrics and Meaning – Jordan Zevon’s Message in a Bottle
  • List of the World’s Oldest Messages in Bottles
    • World’s Oldest Message in a Bottle is 135 Years Old
    • 132 Year Old Message in a Bottle is Second Oldest
    • 112 Year Old Message in a Bottle is Third Oldest
    • 108 Year Old Message in a Bottle is Fourth Oldest
    • 107 Year Old Message in a Bottle is Fifth Oldest
    • 101 Year Old Message in a Bottle is Sixth Oldest
    • 98 Year Old Message in a Bottle is Seventh Oldest
    • 88 Year Old Message in a Bottle is Eighth Oldest
  • Message in a Bottle Myths
    • Queen Elizabeth’s “Official Uncorker of Ocean Bottles”
    • The Theophrastus Message in a Bottle Myth

Message In A Bottle Hunter™

~ Message in a Bottle History, Stories, and News

Message In A Bottle Hunter™

Category Archives: Friendship

Message in a Shell Discovered on Florida Beach: Seeking Shane and Jolene!

05 Saturday Aug 2017

Posted by Clint Buffington | Message in a Bottle Hunter in Friendship, Love, Mystery Message, News, ocean currents, weird news

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Cocoa Beach, February 26th 2009, Florida, Inspiration, message in a bottle, message in a shell, News, Shane and Jolene, wedding

Message in a Shell Washes Ashore

Today: a tiny post about a tiny–but very intriguing–message. A message in a shell.

At the end of July this year, Amy Mayes was walking Cocoa Beach with her husband and kids when they stumbled upon a shell that appeared to have writing on its inner surface, according to WKMG News 6 in Orlando.

Message in a shell

Photo: Amy Mayes

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Donald Trump / Adele Message in a Bottle Found: “These facts may surprise you…”

22 Saturday Jul 2017

Posted by Clint Buffington | Message in a Bottle Hunter in Friendship, message in a bottle, Pollution, Science

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2015, Adele, Cambridge New York, Climate Change, Don Lehman, Donald Trump, Friendship, Hoosic River, Inspiration, message in a bottle, News, Owl Kill, The Post Star

Message in a Bottle Found Mentioning Adele and Donald Trump

A lot of famous people’s names end up in messages in bottles, and to that list we can now add Adele and Donald Trump.

Don Lehman, crime and county government writer for The Post Star in New York state, was fishing in the Hoosic River last week when he found a message in a bottle!

The message, from Evan Hutchinson of Cambridge, New York, is dated 2015, and strikes me as a truly intriguing find.

Evan’s message reads: Continue reading →

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Wyatt, Meet Madelyn! A True Message in a Bottle Story

21 Friday Jul 2017

Posted by Clint Buffington | Message in a Bottle Hunter in Friendship, message in a bottle, News

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Atlantic Beach, Cary, Friendship, Inspiration, Madelyn, message in a bottle, News, north carolina, Raleigh, Wyatt

Madelyn’s Message in a Bottle Found on Atlantic Beach, North Carolina

July 17th, 2017 was a big day for 10-year-old Wyatt Young! He was with his family at Atlantic Beach, North Carolina, when he spotted a bottle with a note inside. A really real, truly true message in a bottle! I dreamed of finding one when I was 10. Can you imagine?! Little did Wyatt know, he was about to connect with the author of this message in a bottle, Madelyn. To me, the most amazing thing about Madelyn’s message in a bottle is that she didn’t live halfway around the world, as you might expect. Surprisingly, Wyatt learned that Madelyn lived quite a bit closer than that…

Wyatt on Atlantic Beach with Message in a Bottle from Madelyn - Credit Jenny Young

Wyatt Young with his Message in a Bottle find. Photo: Jenny Young

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The Lighthouse Keeper’s Tale: A Message in a Bottle Story

28 Wednesday Jun 2017

Posted by Clint Buffington | Message in a Bottle Hunter in Friendship, history, Love, message in a bottle, Romance

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Lighthouse, message in a bottle, Penpal, St. Gilles Croix de Vie, Thacher Island

Hello, Lighthouse!

I would like to tell you a message in a bottle story that is equally heartwarming and heartbreaking. It all starts with a lighthouse on a lonely island, a devoted lighthouse keeper, and a New Year’s tradition. When I think of it now, it puts me in mind of one of my daughter’s favorite books, Hello, Lighthouse! by Sophie Blackall. Blackall’s book even notes the tradition of lighthouse keepers sending messages in bottles. Hello, Lighthouse! begins (with emphases provided by my daughter): “On the hiiiighest rock, of a tiiiiiny island, at the eeeedge of the world stands a lighthouse…”

Hello, Lighthouse book cover showing showing a lighthouse standing on a rock surrounded by ocean.

A Brief History of the Thacher Island Lighthouse(s)

Our story begins: On the hiiiighest rock, of a tiiiiny island, off the coast of Massachusetts, stands a lighthouse. This lighthouse stands on Thacher Island, a world unto itself.

 

Satellite view of Thacher Island

In the early days of America–when we were still colonies, actually–there were a great number of shipwrecks in the area. In fact, Thacher Island takes its name from a shipwreck survivor: Anthony Thacher. He and his wife Elizabeth were the lone survivors of an awful shipwreck in 1635. Dozens of others, including their five children, were swept away.

Shipwrecks continued around Thacher Island. This led to none other than John Hancock petitioning the provincial government to build lighthouses Thacher Island. The lighthouses fired up in 1771. According to the video below, these were the last lighthouses to be built in America by the British colonial government

In the following years of conflict, it appeared that the lighthouses were helping the British fleet navigate the area more than they were helping captains and colonists avoid wrecks. So, a company of minutemen headed to the island in 1775 where they destroyed the lights and brought the lighthouse keeper and his family back to the mainland. Eventually, the lighthouses were restored to operation and taken over by the new government of the United States. As the video above explains, George Washington directed Alexander Hamilton to appoint keepers for the nation’s lighthouses, and he did–including for Thacher Island.

Lighthouse Keepers Return to Thacher Island

According to the Thacher Island Association, “The present 123-foot granite towers were completed in 1861 raising the lights to 166 feet above sea level.” About a century later, in 1983, The Thacher Island Association took over care for the island. They restored the lighthouses and keepers’ homes, and began operating the lighthouses with the help of volunteers. This is where volunteer Lighthouse Keeper Ann Hernandez comes into the picture!

Thacher Island Association photo with lighthouse 1Thacher Island Association photo with lighthouse 2

A Message in a Bottle Tradition

According to The Boston Globe, “Each year on her birthday, Ann Hernandez and her boyfriend, Alan Tomaska, would settle on the rocky shore of Thacher Island and uncork a bottle of champagne in a toast to the day. When the bottle was empty and the tide going out, Hernandez would tuck a handwritten message inside and Tomaska would hurl the bottle over the rocks and into the crashing surf.”

Thacher Island with Lighthouses - Tim Pierce - Wikipedia

Thacher Island and its duel lighthouses. This is the rocky coast where Ann Hernandez sat with her partner on her birthday in 2003. They drank a bottle of champagne, then sent a message out in it.

I always wonder what makes someone send a message in a bottle. What do they hope for? Ann, for example. Did she want a penpal? Maybe she just wanted to see where it would end up? Maybe I read too much into these things, but I wonder: was there something in Ann that made her long for the outside world? For adventure beyond her own daily sphere? She already spent her summers tending the lighthouse on Thacher Island. Ann must have been an adventurous person.

Lighthouse Keeper’s Message in a Bottle, Found!

Six years after sending one of these bottles, a French couple found it washed ashore in their tiny village.

Ann Hernandez Message in a Bottle - The Lighthouse Keeper's Tale

Ann Hernandez’s Message in a Bottle. Photo: Michel and Daniele Onesime / Boston.com

When they looked for Ann, they found that she had passed away unexpectedly the year before they found her note. During her lifetime, according to Boston.com, only one of her bottles was found. It surfaced “in Marshfield, a place that Hernandez dismissed as not exotic enough to merit excitement.”

But according to her friends, “A quaint fishing village on the western coast of France…was just the sort of place where Hernandez would have loved to see her message in a bottle land.”

St_gilles.jpg

The French village where Ann’s bottle was found, St. Gilles Croix de Vie. Photo: Wikipedia user Splashview.

The French folks who found her bottled note felt the inexplicable power of messages in bottles to connect people. In fact, they befriended Ann’s friends and family! They hoped to visit Thacher Island and the lighthouse that was a home away from home for Ann.

In the meantime, the discovery of the note was a powerful reminder of Ann’s life for her friends and family. It’s the same with so many messages in bottles: Her friends and family must have believed they would never hear from Ann again. But then, all of a sudden, they did.

To me, that’s as close to magic as we can get.

For More on Messages in Bottles

Follow me on Instagram and Facebook where I post new stories, or sign up to receive new blog posts via email. Check out my digital message in a bottle museum for examples of real messages in bottles, see my list of the oldest messages in bottles, or read my analyses of messages in bottles in pop culture, from Taylor Swift to Sting & the Police and beyond!

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Message In A Bottle Found: Seeking Socorra From Philly!

28 Sunday May 2017

Posted by Clint Buffington | Message in a Bottle Hunter in Friendship, message in a bottle

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

found, message in a bottle, Ocean City, Philadelphia, Philly, Religion, Socorra

A Message in a Bottle from Socorra

On April 30th, 2017, a woman named Katie was walking the shores of Ocean City, Maryland, looking for shells when she spotted an unusual bottle in the lapping waves. Inside was a piece of paper! On a different day, it seems, a woman named Socorra had sent a message in a bottle…

Socorra Message in a Bottle Still in Bottle

The tiny scroll inside held a message that was very small, but somehow very big.

On the front side, just a name and a simple heart:

Socorra message in a bottle side one

Hi. I am Socorra from Philadelphia, PA.

On the back, a spiritual declaration:

Socorra message in a bottle side 2

God will bless you know matter what.

Where is Socorra from Philly?

With a message so short, and just a first name, it would be crazy to try to find the sender…right? But of course, my friends, crazy doesn’t stop us here at Message in a Bottle Hunter!

With your help, stranger things have happened…

I say we spread the word about Katie’s find and try to connect with Socorra from Philly. Something tells me she would cherish this small miracle 🙂

***If you liked this story, click here to visit (and “like”) my Facebook for more message in a bottle stories! You can even help solve them!

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1987 Message In A Bottle Mystery: “Please, help us…We tried to sail away…”

26 Friday May 2017

Posted by Clint Buffington | Message in a Bottle Hunter in Adventure, Friendship, Joke, message in a bottle, Mystery Message, News, plastic, Pollution

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1987, Arastradero Lake, California, Daniele Rodolfi, Enid Pearson Arastradero Preserve, Inspiration, message in a bottle, Mystery, News, Palo Alto, Paul Southworth

A Bizarre 1987 Message in a Bottle Mystery Emerges From California Pond

Well, this is a weird one! A 1987 message in a bottle mystery from a small lake in California.

Enviro-crusader and “litter picker” Paul Southworth (I am a fan!) was recently out cleaning trash from Arastradero Lake in California–it’s nestled in the San Francisco Bay area. Woo hoo!

1987 Message in a Bottle Mystery - Paul Southworth Picking Litter.jpg

Paul with his trusty litter grabber and bags of junk from litterpicking the O&W Rail Trail in Kerhonkson, NY.

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