‘It’s like winning the lottery of a story’: 20 years after it was tossed in the ocean in Maine, message in a bottle reaches Scotland
"I'm still in shock."
Sliding a handwritten note into a plastic bottle, and tossing it in the ocean was something Matt Rhoades felt compelled to do. It was the summer of 1998 or 1999, and Rhoades, 12 or 13 at the time, said he did it “in the spirit of imagining a fun summer at the beach.”Little did Rhoades know the makeshift letter carrier would reemerge 20 years later, off the coast of Scotland.About two weeks ago, Rhoades said he kept getting notifications on Twitter. He thought it was spam at first, until he saw the photo that Mike Bolam of Scotland shared. Rhoades recognized his own handwriting and former address.“It’s wild actually,” said Rhoades, now 34 and a Newburyport resident. “I’m still in shock.”
.#MessageinaBottle Hey Twitter, do you think we can we let young Matt Rhoades from #ColleenDrive #Salem #NH USA know his message in a bottle has been found on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean on the Island of #NorthUist off the North West coast of Scotland #OuterHebrides pic.twitter.com/GxdKN6EmJr
— Mike Bolam (@MikeBolam) July 8, 2019
Bolam told Rhoades he was vacationing along the Scottish coast when his daughter spotted the bottle in the surf. Together, they pulled it out.
“It just looks like trash,” Rhoades said. “I can’t believe they would even open it up to see what was inside of it.”
Inside, they found the note, which read: “Hello, my name is Matt Rhoades. Please write back. Salem, N.H. 35 Colleen Drive. USA.” Had he known the outcome, Rhoades would have likely written something cooler, he said.
“My sister is giving me crap about polluting in the ocean,” Rhoades aded. But Bolam told him he recycled the bottle, according to Rhoades. “I thought that was awesome.”
Rhoades said he thinks it’s important to consider that, for two decades, the bottle remained in the ocean.
“The theme here is look at how well that bottle held up for 20 years,” he said. “I feel obligated to tell people, ‘Don’t do this.’”
That aside, Rhoades noted that it’s an “uplifting” story, one that he’ll certainly be telling throughout his life.
“It’s like winning the lottery of a story,” he said.
