Marianne Winkler was out on a holiday in the German island of Amrum with her husband when she found a message in a bottle. She said it was always a joy when someone finds bottles with messages at the beach but she didn't expect what she had in her hand.
It turned out the bottle is one of more than a thousand released from 1904 to 1906 by the Marine Biological Association in Plymouth for a project carried out by the association's then-president, George Parker Bidder. Association staff no longer keep track of the bottles Bidder released but estimate that what Winkler found is part of the batch from 1906.
Inside the bottle was a piece of paper that said to break the bottle. However, Winkler's husband, Horst, tried first to get the paper out without damaging the container. When successful, they did what the message said and discovered a postcard. It was not dated but it bore a promise that whoever returned it to the Marine Biological Association would get a shilling as a reward.
After filling in information the postcard asked, such as how and where the bottle was found, the Winklers sent the postcard to the association, enclosing it in an envelope to protect it from damage along the way.
"It was a quite a stir when we opened that envelope, as you can imagine," said Guy Baker, the Marie Biological Association's communications director.
According to Baker, the bottle Winkler found was released in an effort to learn more about deep sea currents, specifically designed to float just above the sea bed where it, and others like it, can be carried away by currents. The association is still doing similar work but now it has better technology at its disposal.
Back then, however, the bottles helped Bidder prove that deep sea currents flowed following an east-to-west direction in the North Sea. He was also able to determine that plaice swam against deep currents, which was valuable information for the fishing industry.
Baker said they are still waiting for the Guinness Book of World Records to confirm Winkler's discovery. In the meantime, the Marine Biological Association sent her a shilling as promised by the postcard.
Currently, the oldest message-in-a-bottle is 99 years and 43 days old. It was released as part of a similar experiment in 1914 and was found by fishermen in 2013.
Photo: Susanne Nilsson | Flickr
