A Message in a Bottle Leads to Stories From Everywhere

Recently, my friend Cathy showed me a plastic Coke bottle she found on the beach. Inside the bottle was a neatly folded letter. The cap was tight, and no water had penetrated the bottle. The message in the bottle was dry and in good shape. Our only problem was that we did not know in what language the letter was written.

Upon initial inspection we thought the letter might be written in Spanish. But certain words did not translate well. Cathy made a copy of the letter, and I took it to La Surena on Amelia Island and asked if someone could help me. They were very kind and translated some words, but the message was still not completely clear. Not all the words were in Spanish.

Next, I asked my friend Peri Betsch if she could translate the message. Peri took one look at the letter and immediately recognized the language. She asked where I got the letter. I told her the story, and she said that we need to gently fold the letter like it was originally and place it back in the bottle. Then return the bottle to the sea. I forwarded this information to Cathy, who still had the original message and the bottle.

Peri told me the message in the bottle was written phonetically and was Nigerian with some Spanish and French variations mixed in. It was creolized. The author of the message in the bottle was a grandmother who was praying for her family and herself. Her prayer was to Yemaya, a celebrated giver of life and metaphysical mother of all orishas (deities), according to Britannica and my friend Peri.

In Nigeria, Yemaya is depicted as a queenly mermaid. She is the Ocean Mother Goddess in Santeria, an Afro-Caribbean religion practiced around the world. Its roots are anchored in the Yoruba religion, which was brought over to the New World by enslaved Africans as early as the 16th century.

I decided to dive into the historical record and see what other stories might float my way. I found hundreds of articles about people finding a message in a bottle. Several stories were very moving. Other tales were quite charming. Many ask the finder to contact the sender so they can calculate how far and how long the communication traveled. I spent hours reading message-in-the-bottle stories this past month. And I selected a few to share with you.

The Key West Citizen – Sept. 18, 1934. Two Lithuanian Air Force aviators returning home from New York crashed to death 400 miles short of their goal. Several weeks later, a fellow aviator from the Lithuanian Air Force dropped a message in a bottle in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The letter read:

“Returning from the World Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago, to Kaunas in Lithuania, I am dropping this bottle in the mid-ocean. Let the sea-goddess Jurate know that the fearless Lithuanian aviators have conquered this ocean and that it no longer can inspire any fear.” A year later, the message was found by Prof. James Ritchie of Aberdeen University on the shores of northwest Scotland.

The Palm Beach Post published an article on Dec 5, 1940 that tells the story of a message in a bottle that washed ashore in Brighton, England. The message read: “1940 Dunkerque. Wishing England all the best of luck from Dunkerque. If you receive this note, please write to 164, Duke Street, St. Helens, Lancashire, England.”

The finder wrote to the address and discovered that Richard Hands, 38, was among the last rescued from the beaches during the Battle of Dunkirk in 1940. In that battle, 4,505 were missing or considered dead from the British Expeditionary Force. Most of them fell during the fall of France during WWII.

A sailor tossed a message in a bottle from a ship near Honolulu, and it was found seven years and one day later off the coast of Africa, according to the Vero Beach Press Journal on June 7, 1946.

Basil Thorn, a fisherman from the Isle of Wight in the English Channel, cast a message in a bottle in 1937. A year later, a fisherman in Norway found it. The two corresponded for the next nine years. After WWII, a young Basil Thorn visited his pen pal in Norway. On that trip, Thorn met and married Miss Malmberg. It seems the bottle brought him a bride, according to the Pensacola News Journal on November 28, 1946.

Port Arthur, Ontario – A message in a bottle washed ashore from lighthouse keeper Harry O’Conner. The message instructed to “come and get me first chance. Almost died. Can’t get out.” O’Conner was found dead in the lighthouse 2 miles offshore. The discovery of the bottle led to the formation of the rescue party, according to the Tampa Bay Times on Nov. 11, 1949.

One message in a bottle asks the finder to notify the United States hydrographic office in Washington. “You will thereby assist in the verification of the circulation of ocean currents. Your service will be very much appreciated by all mariners.” Clem McCauley found the bottle in Sydney Australia 20 years later and turned it over to the American consul in Sydney. This article appeared in the Tampa Tribune October 22, 1950.

Finally, the most unique story about a message in a bottle is the one that is going into outer space. Anyone can participate in NASA’s “Message in a Bottle” campaign. NASA is inviting people to sign their names to a poem that will fly to Europa. The poem aims to connect two watery worlds -- one ocean on Earth with one ocean on Jupiter.

The campaign is a special collaboration uniting art and science. Partners in this project are U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limon, the Library of Congress, and NASA. The poem and the spacecraft will travel 1.8 billion miles on Clipper’s voyage to the Jupiter system. Europa Clipper’s voyage will depart from NASA Kennedy Space Center in October 2024, arriving in Jupiter's orbit by 2030.

Names gathered by the campaign will be stenciled onto a dime-size silicon microchip. A metal plate on board the spacecraft will be engraved with “In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa” by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limon.

What great fun I have experienced diving into these bottle message stories. I have discovered many old and new cultural traditions. And I want to say thank you Yemaya, goddess of the sea, for providing comfort and nurturing care for all the suffering in this world.