No SOS: Discoverer of message in a bottle at the Jersey Shore connects with sender
Photo: Susanne Nilson via Creative Commons license.
A man walking his dogs in Long Beach Island’s Harvey Cedars who found a message in a bottle has connected with its sender.
Vince Stango says a recent storm washed away the sand dunes on Harvey Cedars and that’s when he spotted the bottle.
Stango tells the Asbury Park Press the note was written on stationery from the Cunard cruise line.
The note read: “Found the bottle? Read this note? I’m Stuart, if you wish, call or mail me. Speak or mail soon. England Stuart.”
When he found the bottle and saw it was from someone in England, he told 6ABC, he couldn’t get The Police’s “Message in a Bottle” out of his head.
Stango sent a message to an email address that was provided and called two phone numbers in the United Kingdom.
And he’s now connected with the sender, the Asbury Park Press reported.
Stuart Brown of Yorkshire, England says he tossed five bottles while traveling aboard the Queen Elizabeth.
Brown believes Stango found one of the two bottles he tossed overboard while sailing toward New York from Southampton.
The two men chatted over the phone and through texts after the discovery. Brown says he sends the marine messages out to make friends.
It’s not the first message in a bottle found or released at the Jersey Shore.
In the reverse route, a message in a bottle tossed into the Atlantic Ocean from Island Beach State Park in January 2014 reached northwestern France — more than 3,000 miles away. The note read, “Write to us about your good fortunes!”
Just to the south of Island Beach State Park, a little girl’s message in a bottle that entered the ocean in Barnegat Light arrived in Ireland.
And a bottle throw into the ocean in Ocean City in 1985 was discovered in North Carolina’s Outer Banks after a 2009 nor’easter.
The note read: “Thank you for finding me!!! I am from a ‘message in a bottle’ contest and I was launched Monday, July 1, 1985. If you found me before August 1, 1985, please contact the public relations office, Ocean City. … You will receive a free prize if I have traveled the farthest!!”
It was part of a contest that offered a prize — saltwater taffy — for the bottle that traveled the farthest.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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