13 Wednesday Sep 2017
Posted in Friendship, message in a bottle, News
Anyone who has ever renovated an old house knows it involves a bit of archaeology. Who installed this ceiling fan? Why are the walls insulated but not the ceiling? What lunatic placed a light switch inside the shower? Old houses are a grab-bag of choices made by previous owners, some perplexing, others delightful.
Clarke Elsby knows this well–he directs a team of technicians for Richardson & Starling contractors in Dumfries, Scotland.
12 Saturday Aug 2017
Posted in Adventure, Friendship, message in a bottle, plastic, Pollution
There are a few kinds of message in a bottle stories I am a sucker for. Near the top of the list are those involving kiddos, and those highlighting the plastic pollution plague in our ocean. This story does both!
Rachel and Olivia, 12 and 9 respectively, each sent a message in a bottle while on a family outing in Brittas Bay, Ireland, near Arklow, according to BBC Wales.
Rachel, left, and Olivia, right. Photo: Mythen Family / Shemazing.net
22 Saturday Jul 2017
Posted in Friendship, message in a bottle, Pollution, Science
Tags
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
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
21 Friday Jul 2017
Posted in Friendship, message in a bottle, News
Tags
Atlantic Beach, Cary, Friendship, Inspiration, Madelyn, message in a bottle, News, north carolina, Raleigh, Wyatt
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 Young with his Message in a Bottle find. Photo: Jenny Young
13 Saturday May 2017
Posted in Flaschenpost, Friendship, Love, message in a bottle, Mystery Message, plastic, Pollution, Romance
Manon van der Molen is the kind of person who picks up trash off the beach. Plenty of people get upset about plastic trash at sea, mucking up our beaches. But Manon? She actually does something about it. That’s how she stumbled upon a photo in a bottle.
“I hate all the trash in the ocean,” Manon told me. A kindred spirit! She has even volunteered with the Archelon Marine Turtle Protection Association.
“My kids are amazed by all the plastic in the ocean and do not understand why people do that. See–even kids understand!” Indeed. I think kids often understand these things better than adults. It’s obvious, even to children, that too many of us are not taking care of the ocean. But we could.
So, when Manon was walking the beach with her family–her husband and three kids–on May 5th, 2017, at De Haan, Belgium, she was picking up plastic trash. That’s a great way to help! And sometimes, among the trash, we stumble upon a little “treasure”–a reward for cleaning the beach, in the form of an unexpected human connection. A reminder, perhaps, that while most of what’s floating around in the ocean is simply trash that shouldn’t be there, still…maybe, just maybe, one in a billion or so pieces of flotsam can create an amazing and beautiful connection between strangers.
“That’s when I found the tube,” she told Continue reading
09 Thursday Feb 2017
Posted in Friendship, message in a bottle
Tags
Friendship, Inspiration, Long Beach Island, message in a bottle, Stuart Brown, UK, Vince Stango, Yorkshire
Woohoo! Another friendship made possible thanks to a message in a bottle! It seems Asbury Park Press tracked down Stuart Brown of Yorkshire, UK, who sent a message in a bottle discovered in February 2017 on Long Beach Island. The finder was Vince Stango, who “runs a software and IT consulting firm” according to APP. The sender, Stuart Brown, is a retired engineer, of Yorkshire, UK. Stuart told the APP that he had “just returned home from a world tour aboard the Queen Elizabeth luxury ocean liner”. On that trip, he sent a few messages in bottles. But Vince is the only person to have found one so far. The men have exchanged text messages since the find.
Vince Stango with his dogs. They found Stuart’s message in a bottle. Photo Courtesy: Peter Ackerman / Asbury Park Press
Asbury Park Press was able to make out the phone numbers on the message (apparently two were included) and Brown answered one of them. Asked why he sends messages in bottles (as he described sending several others on his journeys), he told APP: “I do it to get in touch with people.” He went on to say, “You might find somebody and make a friend. I like to think people find them. You never know what will happen.”
Stuart Brown’s Message in a Bottle. Photo Courtesy: Asbury Park Press / Vince Stango
I must say, I really love Mr. Brown’s explanation here. He he hits on the key points that make messages in bottles so special. First, they allow you to “get in touch” with others. Case in point: two men from different countries and cultures are now connected by a powerful experience I doubt either will ever forget.
Second, “You might find somebody and make a friend.”
Absolutely! Yes, yes, yes. In a world that is “connected” by the internet, but in which we nevertheless find ourselves so often alone and isolated, what could be more powerful than making a new friend in this magical, mythical, totally organic way?
Finally, “You never know what might happen.” I couldn’t agree more. The open-ended, mysterious, adventurous nature of messages in bottles is the source of their charm and power to connect. You really never do know what might happen. Heck, a message in a bottle could lead you to Washington, DC, or Marseille, France, or New Hope, Pennsylvania, or Canterbury, England, or Dresden, Germany…
Stuart’s Message in a Bottle, found by Vince Stango. Photo Courtesy: Peter Ackerman / Asbury Park Press
Will Vince Stango and Stuart Brown ever travel to meet each other? Who knows. Does it matter?
What matters is this: The path to a new friendship lies clear. The wall between these two strangers is now and forever removed. We should all be so lucky–to extend a hand in friendship to the wild blue yonder, and receive friendship in return.
It’s still a beautiful world, friends and neighbors, and it’s full of good people. Don’t let anyone tell you different!
Follow my Facebook page and my Instagram profile to help solve future bottled mysteries, and see real messages in bottles as soon as I post them! For more info on messages in bottles, including links to message in a bottle history, facts, myths, and pop culture references, check out the main page for Message in a Bottle Hunter Clint Buffington! New stories appear on my message in a bottle blog, and if you subscribe to follow the blog via email, it will be like getting messages in bottles delivered right to your inbox 