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.