Kids' 30-Year-Old Scottish Message In A Bottle Shows Up In Florida Keys

In the 1980s, a group of schoolchildren in Scotland sent out a message with a very low likelihood of ever getting a response. Some of them, guided by childhood naivete, may have thought they would someday hear back from its unspecified recipient, but the odds were slim.

Still, there was always a chance, and a Florida couple ended up finding the message in a bottle the students of Chapelpark School in Forfar, Scotland sent into the ocean three decades prior, the Miami Herald reported.

Ruth and Lee Huenniger live in Key Largo, Florida. They found the maritime missive last September in the wake of Hurricane Irma. It was a simple call-and-response from Scottish children estimated to be no older than 8 years old, per the Herald’s report.

“We are learning all about pirates. We would like to see how far this message goes. Please write and tell us where you found this bottle,” the letter said.

The Huennigers responded with a location and date of discovery and well-wishes to the students. Much to their surprise, the letter was sent on its initial journey more than 30 years ago, according to a new response from now-retired teacher Fiona Cargill. That means all the kids from that class in Scotland are all adults with lives at this point.

Three decades is a lengthy amount of time for a message to find its recipient, but the Huennigers’ letter actually did not even come close to the world record for longest time at sea for a letter. That honor belongs to a simple postcard from the U.K.’s Marine Biological Association, which simply asked its finder to return it for a one shilling reward. That postcard spent 108 years and 138 days at sea.