Message in bottle could be distance record breaker
The message in a bottle launched by a Whangarei mother and son that washed up near Spain appears to have travelled a record-breaking distance.
Jana Joy “flung” a glass wine bottle containing a message written by her then 7-year-old son Julien into the Whangarei Harbour from the end of Manganese Point in Tamaterau in early 2010.
The bottle washed up in Bilbao, near Spain, and was picked up by a woman named Luisa who sent Julien a letter of reply.
It is thought that this could be the furtherest distance a message in a bottle has travelled.
Pilot and sailor, Crawford Brown, who now owns Bannock Brae Estate in Central Otago, said he read the article and made some calculations.
“When I heard that this bottle was discovered on the north coast of Spain, I thought hell’s teeth, that’s about as far as you can get from New Zealand and when you work it out quite accurately, the furtherest away point from Whangarei is very close to the south coast of Spain.
“So it’s certainly a lot further than the Australian bottle travelled that was referred to in the article,” Brown said.
Jana said she thought it was the coolest thing ever when Crawford phoned her to tell her he believed their bottle was a record breaker.
Julien said the whole thing was “incredible”.
Principal scientist of marine physics at NIWA Dr Craig Stevens said it is pretty amazing for the Joys’ bottle to have travelled that far.
“It’s gotten from the Pacific Ocean to the North Atlantic, so there’s only a couple of pathways and I’m pretty sure it didn’t go through the Panama Canal,” Stevens said.
“Presumably it travelled around the southern tip of South America and then up through the Atlantic.”