Imagine that you are on a desert island. You may even have a bottle of rum with you that you had a chance to drink safely. Suddenly, you find a piece of paper, a pen and decide to do the last thing in your power. You write a letter asking for help, put it in an empty bottle and throw your last hope of salvation into the endless ocean. How long do you think it will take for the bottle to be found and you saved? An incident in Alaska just a few days ago can help answer this question.
How long can a bottle float in the ocean?
Despite the fact that this method of communication does not seem particularly reliable, our ancestors, who did not have access to modern communication methods, had to be content with little. So, the famous navigator Christopher Columbus sent the latest news to the Spanish Queen Isabella using the "bottle Telegram". Although not all of Columbus's messages were caught from the ocean, some of them did indeed reach the addressee.
Columbus was not the only one who actively used bottles to convey useful information. Even the English queen Elizabeth I was not opposed to communicating in such an interesting way, who appointed a whole position with a simple and understandable name to read the sea messages - “ocean bottle opener”. Most likely, inspired by the example of the greats, the modern inhabitants of some Indonesian tribes still use this "technology" to communicate with each other.
Some Indonesian tribes still use the * bottle * method of communication.
Despite the fact that a bottle filled with air can drift in the ocean for a very long time, the chance of being found is not so great. So, in the 19th century, 1980 bottles were sent to the ocean off the coast of Scotland in order to study underwater currents. Inside each glass bottle were written a note granting a reward to anyone who discovered an unusual find. However, despite the possibility of receiving a generous premium, only 315 of the 1980 bottles were found.
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Christopher Columbus wasn’t the only bottle-lover.
What are bottled messages used for now?
Despite the fact that the transmission of messages through the bottle and ocean currents has long been outdated, in our time this method is still used as the only way to contact land in case of disasters.
Although, as with any rule, there are exceptions.
In 1957, a Swedish sailor named Ake Viking sent a bottle with a note into the ocean to … get to know each other! In his letter, the sender asked the girl who found the bottle to answer his message and send her photo. It would seem that the sailor's chances were negligible, but something happened that Ake himself did not expect. Incredibly, a girl from Sicily, Paolina Pozzo, responded to the sailor's letter. As it should be in fairy tales, a romantic relationship began between the heroes, which grew into a wedding.
Be that as it may, evidence that the messages in the bottle are still used as a means of communication can be found in an unusual find made in Alaska by a certain Tyler Ivanoff. According to the BBC news service, it turned out that the found bottle with the message inside was sent on a long voyage by a sailor aboard the Russian ship "Sulak" on June 20, 1969. The author of the letter was the sea captain Anatoly Botanenko, who turned 86 when the bottle was found.
In order to find its reader, the message went to the shores of Alaska for 50 years.
Daria Eletskaya