An Edmonton man says he got a huge surprise when he found out that someone had found his message in a bottle after it spent over two years at sea.
During a cruise in January 2016, Tom Love, along with his wife Dora, put a message in a bottle and dropped it in the ocean just off the Polynesian island of Bora Bora. In April, a man located it off the northeastern coast of Australia. The bottle travelled over 6,200 kilometres during 793 days at sea.
The bottle was found on one of the Whitsunday Islands by a man named Charlton Craggs. Craggs then reached out to Love using the email address he had included with the note.
“I was amazed, astounded, when it happened,” Love says.
Love had also enclosed an American dollar bill to pay for any costs associated with making contact.
“I would have put a loonie in, but it wouldn’t fit in the bottle,” he says.
This isn’t the first time Love has sent out messages to sea, but it’s the first time one has been found.
“I guess the inspiration was just the idea of that message bobbing around in the ocean for who knows how long. It’s discovered, or never discovered,” Love says.
Love plans to keep in touch with Craggs through email and says he hopes they get to meet up one day.
–With files from Global News’ Albert Delitala