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After leaving the coast of the North American continent and the country later known as America, then charting a course back to Spain, Christopher Columbus believed he, his valient crew, and his three ships at great risk to perish during a long, severe storm at sea. He attempted to send a note to Queen Isabella by means of a sealed cask thrown into the ocean, hoping the cask would somehow be found later by a passing ship and urgently delivered to the queen. Columbus survived but the sealed cask was never seen again.

Finding a message in a bottle or other container adrift at sea, or washed up on the seashore, is often just a romantic notion prompted most recently by movies and song. Usually the messages are not intended for a specific individual because happen chance and the currents or tides make it impossible to ascertain where a bottle may land. The movie Castaway comes to mind when we associate a message in a bottle with someone stranded for many years on a deserted island looking to be rescued so they script a cryptic message then throw it out into the ocean in hopes a passing ship will find it floating.

A message in a bottle is also used to gauge the result of a scientific experiment. As early as 310 BC an ancient Greek philosopher placed a message in a bottle in an experiment to prove that the Mediterranean Sea is formed by the flow and waters of the Atlantic ocean. In more modern times, scientists with the U.S. Navy Hydrographic Office have used the same venue to check ocean current by throwing thousands of bottles into the oceans around the world. Instruction in each bottle, in a variety of languages depending on the region, advised the finder to fill out the enclosed forms and mail or otherwise deliver to a U.S. Consul office.

During the 16th century the English Navy consistently used bottled messages sent ashore to report enemy positions and Queen Elizabeth I did have at her disposal an official appointed position "Uncorker of Ocean Bottles". Nice work, if you can get it.

Off the coast of Costa Rica in May 2005 eighty eight migrants were rescued after placing an SOS message in a bottle that they were then able to tie to a trailing line of a large fishing boat as it passed by in the distance.

The next time you visit the seashore you may just have that once in a lifetime experience and find sticking out of the sand an ages old message in a bottle.

Learn more about this author, Sharon Ruth Hill.
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