A Message in a Bottle-returned(a real-life sea story)

That's right, shipmate. It can happen.   What do you thing the chances are of throwing a message in a bottle overboard on the Atlantic Ocean, and having it recovered? Well, according to Capt Richard Bailey, who skippered Spirit of South Carolina from 2016-2018, about 50/50.   We tested that hypothesis, me and Tripp Seaman the 2d Mate; and, yeah,, I can say that we proved it.

FLASHBACK - 

May 10, 2017. In the North Atlantic,  38 degrees, 26 min North, 65 degrees, 2 min West;   

two days out of St. George's, Bermuda,  northbound to Boston. 

on the 2000 - to midnite watch.

After two straight days of rollicking squally weather, a high pressure systems settles over us, and the SW wind drops to  less than 3 knots.  A starry, moonless sky over head.We've been motor-sailing for 3 hours, sheets hauled in tight to keep the empty sails from flogging. I'm on Capt Bailey's watch, and we're about to hand it over to Tripp's watch at midnite.  Capt Bailey directs me to open the lazarette hatch in the cockpit deck, climb down and hand up a beat-up white igloo cooler stored somewhere below.  He opens it up to display a pile of empty rum bottles. As the our two watches come together, he offers each watch member the opportunity to pick out a bottle.  Tripp and I each pick out a bottle.   Capt Bailey's got several slips of paper in his hand and hands one out to the two of us, they're preprinted with the Ship's information.  We're directed to write our own "to who ever finds this bottle'. So I scribble something on my note, roll it up, and slip it into the bottle, along with a personal business card I scrounged out of my wallet. We cork or screw the tops back on the bottles, seal it with duct tape and with a mumbled benediction, ceremoniously heave our bottles way out off the  starboard quarter into the the black sea.  Tripp then takes charge of his watch, and I practice my sailor's walk along the weather rail all the way to the forecastle and climb into my bunk.  

So, what happened you ask?   FAST FORWARD 18 months.

For a visual of the rest of the story follow this link:  What Happened to the bottle?