In the news over the weekend was this
report of a message-in-a-bottle that traveled all the way from the north-east coast of Scotland to New Zealand... in 47 days. That means it traveled at a continuous rate of 18 miles per hour. It really didn't have any time for detours. It must have made a beeline straight to its destination.
The sender of the message was six-year-old Keely Reid, and it was discovered by six-year-old James Wilson. This all sounds too perfect to be believable. Even Reid's family is having a hard time swallowing it:
"I can't see how it got to New Zealand. Did somebody maybe pick it up and fly it to New Zealand? It is a bit of mystery," admitted Pearl Reid, Keely's grandmother in an interview to 'The Independent' .
Scientists also are skeptical:
Experts in ocean currents at Fisheries Research Station Laboratories in Aberdeen share her apprehension as they try to figure out how the bottle could have covered more than 32,200 kms in just 47 days- at an estimated 18 miles per hour. "As a scientist, I would usually hedge my bets and leave room for some possibility but there is absolutely no way the bottle could have made it to New Zealand on its own, it must have been picked up by somebody," Bill Turrell, a scientist at the Station was quoted in the paper.
This isn't the first suspect Message in a Bottle that we've seen here at the MoH. Back in Feb 2006 there was the message that crossed the Atlantic,
only to receive an angry reply.
Comments
I also threw some bottles into the Pacific on my birthday about four years ago. Same outcome: nothing yet.
47 days to go from the North Atlantic to the South Pacific in 47 days seems highly unlikely.
In fact, given the pattern of sea currents from Scotland it most likely would be taken by the Gulf stream and end up in the Arctic ice... although on a drifting bottle wind perhaps is a more important factor instead of current (yet persistent wind direction where the bottle was alledgedly thrown in is in northeast direction too).
Another 'coincidence' besides both boys being 6, is that both have English as their native language...
On anther note, got similar memories by this all to Cranky (but at least one of my bottles was found!!):
A botlle with a letter put overboard by my cousin (who was a sailor at that time) on my request on the mid-atlantic on 12 Feb 1984 still has not been found.
A bottle thrown into sea by me from a Pilot boat a few km out on sea in front of IJmuiden harbour in the summer of 1983 was picked up by a beachcomber a week later at Callantsoog 40 km north of where I threw it in.
A botlle thrown into sea from the beach of Katwijk by a local boy was found my me the same day near Zandvoort, 15 km to the north.
This was in December 2004 by the way.