Wine bottles have more uses than just holding wine. For centuries they, along with beer bottles, have been used to send messages into the future. Writing
a message and sealing it in a bottle before casting it out to sea sounds
romantic, and a bit adventurous. Where
will it go? Who will find it? When will it be found? Will anyone reply?
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| Theophrastus |
The
first known messages to be sent out in bottles occurred around 310 BC by the Ancient Greek philosopher, Theophrastus. He was intent on proving
that the Mediterranean Sea was formed by the Atlantic Ocean. (There's no record as to if he received any answers.)
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| Queen Elizabeth the 1st |
During
the 16th century, Queen Elizabeth created the official title of “Uncorker of Ocean Bottles” for the
person designated to open bottle from the sea, which contained messages from
the Navy about enemy positions on the high seas.
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| Coconut Wood |
In
1784, forty-four Japanese seamen set sail in search of buried treasure on
various Pacific islands when their ship was blown off course and stranded on a
deserted island. One of the castaways, Chunosuke Matsuyama, carved their story
into thin pieces of coconut wood then inserted them into a bottle and tossed it
into the sea. In 1935, over 150 years later, the bottle washed ashore in
Hiraturemura, Japan – the village where Matsuyama had been born.
To launch a message in a bottle, the sender usually
writes a note or request, seals it in the bottle and then tosses it into the
sea or river to see where it might end up. It appears that 1913 and 1914 were good years
to send out messages in bottles as these three stories show. |
| Thomas Hughes |
One
hundred years ago, on September 9, 1914, 26-year-old Private Thomas Hughes, a
British soldier on his way to fight in France, cast a bottle into the English
Channel that contained a letter to his wife. The message read:
"Dear Wife, I am writing this
note on this boat and dropping it into the sea just to see if it will reach
you. If it does, sign this envelope on the right hand bottom corner where it
says receipt. Put the date and hour of receipt and your name where it says
signature and look after it well. Ta ta sweet, for the present. Your
Hubby."
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| Granddaughter Emily Gowan |
Hughes
was killed in action two days later. In 1999, 85 years after the event, a
fisherman found the bottle in the River Thames. Hughes’ wife Elizabeth had died
in 1979, but the letter was delivered to his 86-year-old daughter, Emily Gowan
who was living in Auckland, New Zealand.
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| Bottle & Post Card |
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| Crew of Maria I |
Another
interesting find was in the Baltic Sea, near Kiel Germany: The skipper of the
Maria I netted a brown beer bottle while fishing. A crewmember noticed a paper
inside which turned out to be a postcard from Denmark. Dated May 17, 1913 the
card had been written and released by 20-year-old Richard Platz, a German
living in Berlin. He requested that the
finder forward the postcard back to him in Berlin.
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| Maritime Museum in Hamburg |
Platz
died in 1946, but his granddaughter, Angela Erdmann, now 62-years-old still
resides in Berlin and was amazed at the find. The bottle and its message went
on display at the Maritime Museum in Hamburg this spring, but is now being
studied by researchers as they try to make out the remainder of the message
which has been badly smudged over the years.
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| Glasgow School of Navigation |
Again,
in 1914, a scientist, Captain C. Hunter Brown of the Glasgow School of
Navigation cast 1,890 clear glass bottles into the ocean as a way to study
local ocean currents around Scotland. The notes read:
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| Bottle |
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| Note Found Inside Bottle |
Please state where and when this card
was found, and then put it in the nearest Post Office. You will be informed in
reply where and when it was set adrift. Our object is to find out the direction
of the deep currents of the North Sea." One of the bottles was found east of the Shetland
Islands by a fishing vessel – 98 years later, in 2012.
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| Zeppelin L 19 |
It
was during WWI, on February 1, 1916 when the crew of Zeppelin L 19 of the German
Imperial Navy was returning from their first bombing raid on England. Engine
trouble and malfunctioning radio equipment led to the Zeppelin flying off-course into
Dutch air space where it was fired upon. The damaged airship was then blown offshore and
landed in the North Sea.
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| King Stephen and Sinking Zeppelin |
The
next morning a British fishing vessel, The King Stephen sighted the L 19's distress
signals. When the captain and crew arrived, they found Germans aboard the sinking ship: the captain refused to rescue them and left them to die. As the weather
worsened, Zeppelin crewmembers wrote personal messages and an account of what
had happened before placing the notes in several bottles and tossing them into
the roiling sea. When the Royal Navy made a search of the area, no airship or
crew were found. It was four months after the incident when a crewman’s body
washed ashore, and six months until bottles began washing up on shore to tell
the story.
And
what “message in a bottle” tale would be complete with out the requisite love
story. In 1956 a young Swedish sailor, Ake Viking wrote a letter addressed “To
Someone Beautiful and Far Away.” In it he gave his address, a description of himself and closed with these words, "Write to me, whoever you are." Viking then placed the note in a bottle and tossed it overboard to see what, if anything, would happen.
Two
years later, Viking received a letter in reply from a 17-year-old girl, Paolina, in Sicily. She wrote, "Last Tuesday, I found a bottle on the shore. Inside was a piece of
paper, bearing writing in a strange language. I took it to our priest,
who is a great scholar. He said the language was Swedish and, with the
help of a dictionary, he read me your charming letter. I am not
beautiful, but it seems so miraculous that this little bottle should
have traveled so far and long to reach me that I must send you an answer
..." The two began corresponding
and in 1961 Ake moved to Sicily to marry Paolina, his message answered. An article was written about the couple in The American Weekly in 1959 titled "Love in a Bottle." |
| Message in a Bottle |
Bottles
are still being found today, around the world. In April 2013 a bottle washed up
on the beach near Dubrovnik, Croatia. It
had been thrown out to sea in 1985 from Nova Scotia, Canada and made a journey
over 4,000 miles.
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| "1906" Message |
The
oldest note in a bottle was discovered in April of this year, bearing the date
of September 29, 1906. A Canadian man, Steve Thurber found the bottle near Schooner’s Cove in
Tofino, British Columbia. Inside was a note signed by Earl Willard.
Unfortunately, Thurber doesn’t want the bottle opened so independent
verification hasn’t been done.
All
told, only about 350 bottles have been recovered and reported around the world.
Maybe it’s time to finish that bottle of wine, write a message, and send it off
with the current, into the tides of history.
~
Joy
