One of the most exciting discoveries during my weekly beachcombing surveys is finding a message in a bottle. After nearly a decade of surveying Texas beaches, I’ve found more than 60 of them, and each one carries a story.
The most memorable may be a bottle that traveled from Brazil. It was tossed into the Atlantic by an 11-year-old girl sailing around the world with her family aboard a catamaran. To celebrate crossing the equator off the Brazilian coast, they launched the bottle.
About 18 months later, I found it on a Port Aransas beach. Inside were two pages: a colorful hand-drawn map of their journey and a letter written entirely in French. After getting it translated, I wrote back. A month later, the family replied from a small island off the coast of France. We still hope to meet someday to talk about the bottle and their remarkable voyage.
Another bottle contained a surprise: a dollar bill. The message had been thrown overboard during a couple’s 30th birthday cruise in the Caribbean. Eleven years later, it washed ashore near Port Aransas. I contacted the couple through the address included in the note and learned they now have children and live near Austin. The dollar, they explained, was included to cover postage, proper message-in-a-bottle etiquette.
Not every bottle inspires romance. One plastic bottle contained a typed note asking the finder to send an email and report a handwritten number: 27,762. After I replied, the sender explained he had launched the bottle from a pier in Destin, Florida, a year earlier. He then revealed that the number represented how many bottles he had released while tracking ocean currents and that he had filled 52 books with records. I jokingly told him I ought to report him for littering.
Every bottle has its own story. And knowing another one may be waiting beyond the next dune keeps the adventure alive.
Jace Tunnell is the director of community engagement for the Harte Research Institute at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. His Beachcombing series appears in newspapers, as a weekly video on YouTube and KEDT PBS, and as a weekly feature on KEDT NPR. Follow Jace at harteresearch.org, Facebook (@harteresearch) and Instagram (@harteresearch).
This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: Ever find a message in a bottle on the beach? Each has its own story
Reporting by Jace Tunnell, Harte Research Institute / Corpus Christi Caller Times
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By Jace Tunnell, Harte Research Institute | USA TODAY Network
