A blog about messages in bottles

[asakiyume]

With the help of Google Alerts, I keep my eye open for stories about messages in bottles, and when I find interesting ones, I add them, at least temporarily, to the messages-in-bottles page on the Pen Pal website. I've been thinking of setting alerts in more languages than just English, so I could broaden the countries I find results from, but even just in English, it's been interesting to see just how many stories come up.

The other day, what came up was the story of Clint Buffington, a guy who devotes himself not only to finding messages in bottles, but to tracking down the senders. He has a website where he chronicles his finds and adventures.


Clint Buffington with bottles he's found (picture source)

For example, in this entry, from last summer, he talks about being contacted by someone who found several messages--in German--in a bottle as it was floating to shore. How cool is that?!

On this page he contemplates the question of why people send messages in bottles, and he includes answers from people who've done it, annnnd . . .

. . . on this page he talks about the first message in a bottle he ever found--it was in the Caribbean, and with the message there were two US dollars.


"Plastic Beach," by Nick Robinson, on Flickr

Comments

[oiktirmos.livejournal.com]

When I was in 7th grade our class wrote messages and attached them to helium balloons. Ninety or so messages from kids ascended into the sky one morning. My balloon was recovered by someone only ten miles away; the card with the message was mailed back to me. I don't recall how far the farthest recovery was but it was surprisingly far. The experience was analogous to a sending a message in a bottle. The fun was that of gambling, not knowing the result, but giving the wheel a spin and expectantly waiting to see where it stopped. I suspect the excitement of gambling is a component in the motives driving people to send messages in a bottle.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly the same idea! What fun! Floating messages! What a great teacher you had!

Makes me want to try something similar with the healing angel--I think I will.

Thank you for this great idea! I'll report back.

[cafenowhere.livejournal.com]

That's really cool, how he's just the "message in a bottle" guy now. :D I loved the explanation one fellow gave for why he sends such messages: he likes to get away with it on cruise ships.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I'm amazed by how many people *do* send messages in bottles--though really I shouldn't be. I think lots of us love leaving message for the world to find, and bottles are natural message holders.

I really hope I can find some stories from outside the anglophone world. So far there's just one at the messages-in-bottles page--a message in a bottle written in devanagari script.

I think people put prayers or messages of thanks in bottles too. I remember when I successfully transferred colleges, I tied a message of thanks to a tree--same idea.

[duccio.livejournal.com]

Really good post. I read for awhile in the message-in-bottles wordpress blog. I liked this entry (http://messageinabottlehunter.wordpress.com/2014/01/07/john-e-freeland-leaves-his-card-part-three-maggie-valley-and-the-butterfly-effect/#more-864) a lot. Have you contacted this blogger, Clint? I think you two would be fast friends and pen pals and have lots to communicate going on into the future.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

That is a truly awesome entry. I love Phil's father's notes, there at the end!

I did try to contact Clint through the contact form on his website, but he didn't respond--or maybe he just hasn't responded *yet* :-) Maybe one day we'll be in touch. Meanwhile, I admire what he's doing from a distance.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Perhaps you weren't using the right medium...

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Hah! Very good point. I even have an empty bottle….

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

*makes a delighted note of this*

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

:-)

[stormdog.livejournal.com]

Neat! Thank you for the links!

You know, this kind of thing makes me think of my photographic interest in instances of what I think of as encouraged graffiti. People who anonymously leave message in public places for other people to read is something I'm fascinated by. Two examples that I have photographs of and need to post some day are the Wishing Tree in Washington D.C., and a set of statues of Santa in the Heidelberg Project in Detroit. I particularly want to share the ones on the Santas. People have written everything from "Santa, please smoke a blunt with me" to "Santa, please make my daddy stop drinking".

When I see collections of messages like that, I think a lot about what was in the mind of the person who wrote it, and how its perceived by later viewers. I feel like messages in a bottle are a little bit like that, though they're kind of a unicast rather than a broadcast. Until until someone like Mr. Buffington comes along and publicizes them!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I agree with you completely on all points! Yes, I like public message boards like the sort you describe--it's in actual bricks-and-mortar reality what postsecret and its descendants are online. People want to sing out.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

That is seriously cool. Imagine finding more than one!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I think you must develop a knack--the ninja girl has it for spotting coins on the ground (though coins are much more common--but she really does have a knack!)

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes. My eyesight is so bad that I miss a lot of detail, even when I am consciously trying to take it in. But then I glory in color.

[xjenavivex.livejournal.com]

that is really cool

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I think so too!