Tags
beachcomb, beachcomber, beachcombing, bottle, Buffington, Caribbean, Clint Buffington, cork, Message, message in a bottle, messages in bottles, senders
In this blog, I will be posting about my experiences with finding messages in bottles, tracking down the senders, and hopefully, my experiences with meeting them in person.
I found my first message in a bottle in 2007. Somehow, my family has developed a sort of instinct over the years for seeking out unusual things—like morel mushrooms and glass fishing buoys. So, when I found that first message—one of a million pieces of garbage on a desolate beach—something strangely familiar clicked for me, and finding messages in bottles became the latest manifestation of that instinct.
It started with a graduation present from my parents: a two-week trip to the Caribbean with my dad. When dad and I landed, we were in search of adventure, as always, and in search of interesting stuff, as always. One day, we traveled to a desolate island and walked the beach, picking through the bizarre trash that washes up on the shore there: toilet seats, shoes, hard hats, dolls, chairs, port-a-potties, and countless bottles.
I must have walked past several thousand bottles that day—it is almost unbelievable, the variety of bottles on this beach. In fact, I had almost zoned out when something caught my eye—it was a blue bottle lying right on the sand, like it had just washed up. It hit me like a snakebite—I could see there was something inside. I stumbled over to the bottle and held it up, examining the contents: bright orange paper rolled up tightly and tied with a piece of string that poked out the top of the bottle which had a rubber cork. Wrapped around the message inside were two US dollars.
That bottle sparked something in me, something that led to finding many more messages, something that led to this blog. As for now—who knows? I hope I can find these senders, and meet them.
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Hi Clint
Keep hunting! A very special friend of mine put a message to me in a bottle and threw into gulf stream whilst he was sailing in Caribbean headed for Florida in 2003.
Still waiting for it! He never got round to telling me what it said
Best Wishes
Yvonne
keep on keeping on
Your stumbled-upon quest reminds me of a site I like to visit called http://www.foundmagazine.com/
I’ve always wanted to sail down the coast from Maine to the Keys. Maybe further. If I ever do, I’ll make sure to fling a bottle a day in hopes they are found.
looking forward to reading more about your adventures.
Fah-Rigging awesome concept. Way to go!
That looks like a formal document designed to be filled out by someone with a message and put into a bottle. Is that the case? Do all boats have these kinda courtesy message bottles? Kinda like the courtesy notepad at a hotel. If so that’s awesome. I need to travel by boat more… I am really looking forward to reading more about these mysterious messages, particularly the part where you hunt down the message writers.
Kudos!
Holy crap! I knew you had found two of these MIABs, but I didn’t know you had encountered enough to fuel a blog. What a cool theme!