Notes From the Sea

Part I

In 1956, a young sailor at sea was very far from his family and friends for the first time in his life. He wrote a note and put it into a bottle. Then he sealed the bottle and threw it into the sea. In his note, he asked any nice girl who found it to write to him. Some time later, a farmer in Italy who lived by the sea saw the sailor’s bottle and picked it up. He gave the note to his daughter, and she wrote the sailor a letter. More letters traveled to Italy and back, and soon the sailor visited Italy. In 1958, he married the girl.

This is one of many stories about bottles that drift from place to place in the seas and oceans. A sealed bottle is a good traveler at sea. It can survive storms that break ships to pieces. A sealed bottle lies on the water and does not sink. A bottle drifts as quickly as the wind blows and the current moves. A drifting bottle may not move a mile in a month, or it may move a hundred miles in a day. But nobody can tell where a bottle will go.

Two bottles began to travel at the same time in the ocean near Brazil. The first bottle drifted for one hundred and thirty days and was found on a shore in Africa. The second bottle drifted for one hundred and ninety-six days and was found in Nicaragua, in America.

Two other bottles began to drift in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. They drifted for three hundred and fifty days, and people found them in France only a few meters from each other.

Part II

One bottle traveled a very long distance. In 1929, it began to drift in the Indian Ocean. There was a note in it that people could read through the glass. The note asked anyone who found the bottle to report when and where they picked it up. It also said not to open the bottle and to put it back into the sea. This bottle reached America. A man found it, sent a report, and threw it back into the sea. Other men found the bottle, reported it, and threw it back again. The bottle drifted into the Atlantic Ocean and then returned to the Indian Ocean. In 1935, the bottle was in Australia. It had traveled for 2,447 days and moved about ten kilometers each day.

Scientists use drifting bottles when they want to study ocean currents. This is important for navigation on the seas and oceans.

In 1944, some boys who were on the shore in America found a bottle with a note in it. The note said: “Our ship is going down. This is the end. This note may reach America someday.” The note came from an American ship that sank near Gibraltar in 1943, and many people were drowned.

In 1953, people found a bottle in Tasmania with a note from two Australian soldiers. They were on a ship on their way to France during World War I. The soldiers died in that war, and their friends received the letter thirty-five years after the end of the war.