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Message In A Bottle That Crossed The Atlantic Tells Heartbreaking Story

By Anne Sewell
Published on: 09:12 PST, Mar 25, 2016

On a recent school outing, a 9-year-old girl came across a message in a bottle, lying on the beach. It turned out to contain a heartbreaking story of a woman who had lost a good friend and was traveling across the Atlantic Ocean all the way to Spain. The Spanish media is now trying to track down the sender of the moving message in a bottle.

On a trip involving students from the Bergantiños de Carballo College – an outing organized by the environmental organization, Senda Nova – a young girl named Noelia found a beer bottle, lying on Baldaio Beach in A Coruña, Galicia in northwestern Spain.

Tweet translation: Message of love and grief in a beer bottle

José Manuel Menéndez is the president of Senda Nova – the group that organized the school trip – and he told the regional newspaper, La Voz de Galicia, that he half-jokingly told the youngsters to look out for bottles with the lids still on, as they might contain messages. Little did he know how quickly one of the students would actually find a message in a bottle, right there on the beach.

“Ten seconds later, Noelia shouted ‘like this one!'” said Manuel Menéndez.

When the group of students opened the beer bottle, they found it contained a letter written by an English-speaking person named Katie, who had addressed the note to a friend named Craig who had reportedly died, and had placed it in the bottle and thrown it into the ocean.

One of the teachers on the school outing spoke English and helped to translate the message in a bottle, only to find it was a sad and heart-breaking message sent from one beloved friend to another.

The note – written in ink and on two pages – began, “My dearest friend Craig, it has been more than a long time since I’ve seen you, and it still isn’t easy. I miss you all the time. Your death has taught me about life and how we all ought to live.

“I’m currently in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on a sailing ship, headed towards Spain.

“I’m going to put this message in a bottle. A bottle of beer that I drank for you.”

The school teachers theorize that Katie may have been traveling from the United States – or alternatively Australia or New Zealand – as she mentions in the note that her current location was “heading towards Spain,” which was at that time “over the other side of the world.”

Katie went on to write that she wants Craig to know that no matter how long ago she last saw him, she will always love him, will always miss him and would never forget him. She writes that the letter is solely for him, to let him know how much she loved him and how much she still cares.

Tweet translation: The emotional message in a bottle found by a girl on a beach in Galicia

However, she did go on to write that she hopes one day someone will find the note and “some more joy and excitement is brought into the world because of you.”

Little did Katie know that her note would, indeed, bring joy and excitement to a class of 9-year-old school children on an outing in northwestern Spain – more especially young Noelia, who is reportedly keeping the note as a special treasure.

The wording of the message in a bottle can be read clearly in the video included below, or as an image here and here.

Does any reader out there know who Katie is? If you do, The Local would love to track down the sender of the message in a bottle.

[Photo via Flickr by Ade Oshineye, rotated and cropped/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0]

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