Gin-credible! Message in bottle found after 132 years
THE world’s oldest message in a bottle has been found on a beach in Australia – 132 years after it was tossed overboard.
The 19th century gin bottle’s message was dated June 12, 1886, and was thrown off the German ship Paula, 590 miles from the West Australia coast.
Written in faint handwriting, the tightly rolled-up note states the coordinates of the vessel and its voyage that had begun in Cardiff before docking at Amsterdam and Makassar, Indonesia.
It eclipses the previous age record for a message in a bottle of 108 years. It was found sticking out from the sand by Tonya Illman, who was walking around dunes on a remote beach north of Wedge Island, near Perth. After first mistaking it for litter, she took it home and baked the letter in the family oven for five minutes – allowing her to carefully unravel and read it.
It is thought the bottle was part of a 69-year experiment to better understand ocean currents to affect more efficient shipping routes. Thousands of bottles were thrown into the sea from German ships from 1864 until 1933.
Mrs Illman said: ‘This has been the most remarkable event in my life. To think this bottle has not been touched for nearly 132 years and is in perfect condition, despite the elements, beggars belief. I’m still shaking.’
Researchers believe it was washed up within a year of being jettisoned but was preserved under a layer of damp sand.
They added it was likely unearthed by a storm surge more than a century later.