a historic sailing ship, ocean currents, and a message in a bottle

My this-week's message-in-a-bottle story took me to some interesting places--first, to the story of the STS Sedov, a famous sailing ship.
STS Sedov, image from Wikimedia Commons


( the story of the STS Sedov )

Her 90th anniversary was in 2011, and in 2012 she began a voyage around the world--and it was on that voyage that three sailors (Dutch, Finnish, and Russian) tossed a message in a bottle from the ship when it reached Cape Horn, at the extremity of South America. That message then traveled 17,000 kilometers on circumpolar currents and arrived at Macquarie Island, a chilly place between Tasmania and Antarctica, where it was retrieved by wildlife rangers, cleaning rubbish. Here is the story from Australian news.

Circumpolar currents--the red arrow is Cape Horn; the blue arrow is (more or less) Macquarie Island. The message traveled east


Macquarie Island
Source: ECOS Magazine