~9/27-28/<b>2001</b> I was in the middle of the Atlantic on the Celebrity Millennium cruise from Barcelona to Ft.Lauderdale. I kept a close eye on the daily position charts and when it seemed like we were going to be right in the middle of the Atlantic, I wrote a note, bottled it in a wine bottle and threw it overboard.

Yesterday I received a letter from a lady in Arizona addressed:

I found your message in the bottle
Street address
Siesta Key, FL., 34242


She wrote a short note describing what she found. My name and date were missing but she could still make out the address, thus the funny heading on the envelope.

Her and her husband found the bottle on the beaches of Bahamas (not sure which island yet). They found it over the Christmas holidays.

She included her phone number so I called and we talked for few minutes. She also gave me her e-mail address so I will ask more detailed questions, but I find this to be so freaking amazing I needed to share it with you.....

Wow - That's really incredible! finding the bottle after 5+ years. It's a good thing you weren't stranded on a deserted island waitng to be rescued.

Amazing! I would send this story to a magazine or call a TV station. This is very unusual to hear from someone 5 years later after sending a floating note.

But tell us please, you used a wine bottle to get rid of the evidence of smuggling wine on-board?

Funny one, Faina!

Wow, that is a long time.
Once I found a message in a bottle, on the island of Eleuthera. The message had been written two weeks prior, by the previous renter of the same house!

AAFF, that is a wonderful idea you had. I am going to try it on the next cruise I go on. Did you throw it off the back? I am afraid of crushing it beneath the ship's turbulence...

I had a corner/back suite. If you are fimiliar with the Celebrity Millennium class ship, these are the balconies that allowed one to look in 3 directions without stretching over the side, and forward if you did. So it was very easliy done.

Wow, what an awesome story! I have one of those rooms this April for our trip to Hawaii.

Hm...but I would probably be the one who gets caught and fined...

Still, thanks for sharing!

So maybe the guy and gal that fell overboard were trying to toss bottles off with messages in them. Ah, that is what happened. Mystery solved.

Wonderful ! I wonder if there will be anymore strange coincidences with her and her husband once you get some more details...sounds like a story from my Chicken Soup for the Traveler's Soul book I was reading last night...you should submit it on their website !