Florida couple Ruth and Lee Huenniger have found a message in a bottle sent to sea by British primary school pupils
A Florida couple have found a message in a bottle sent to sea by British pupils 4,000 miles away in the 1980s.
The letter came from a class of children in Forfar, Scotland who cast the message out into the North Sea while studying a project about pirates.
It was found by Ruth and Lee Huenniger against a chain link fence 500ft from the Atlantic Ocean while they were inspecting street lights after Hurricane Irma hit Florida on September 29.
The pair wrote to the school and to their surprise received a letter back from the retired teacher who taught the class which sent the bottle.
Mrs Huenniger said that the bottle was in remarkable condition for all the distance it had travelled but the couple threw it out – not thinking they would get a response.
She said: ‘Lee found it after Hurricane Irma as he was checking for damage along a fence in our homeowner’s association.
‘It was a large plastic bottle, like a Coke bottle and it was frosted over and you could not see very well inside.
‘Lee could not get the top off of it but saw a corner of the paper near the neck of the bottle.
‘He was going to put in the recycle bin but decided to cut it open. It was several weeks maybe six before we received a response.
‘We threw the original bottle out because we thought we were not going to hear anything else about the note.
The pair found the message in a bottle near their home in Key Largo, Florida
‘We were pleasantly surprised when we received the response from the previous teacher at the school that is no longer there.
‘The bottle and note was amazingly well preserved to have been in the ocean for so long.’
Retired teacher Fiona Cargill, 60, from Newtyle in Angus, Scotland, is certain that the letter was written by pupils in one of her classes in the 1980s.
She has narrowed it down to one group in particular who had a family link to fishermen in Arbroath which allowed the bottle to go further out into the North Sea.
Ms Cargill, who retired from teaching 18 months ago, said that she would use pirates to strengthen a variety of skills and keep pupils aged around seven interested.
She said: ‘It’s amazing. I’m sure that it was one of my primary 2/3 classes from the 1980s. I liked to teach a project on pirates because it helped develop a lot of different skills.
‘One part of that would involve getting in groups, writing a letter and sending a message in a bottle out to sea and seeing if it ever came back.
‘I believe it is one class of primary 2/3 in particular because one of the children was related to a trawlerman in Arbroath who would take the bottle in their boat and throw it a bit further out so that it was less likely to just wash back ashore.
Retired teacher Fiona Cargill (left), 60, from Newtyle, Angus, with a class from the Chapelpark School in Forfar, Angus, in the 1980’s
‘Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find the pupil who wrote the letter but looking back there’s an error where they meant to write ‘street’ which I found quite amusing.
‘Stupidly, I forgot to get them to date the letter which really would have helped in narrowing it down.’
The message was written by pupils from Chapelpark Primary School in Forfar, which closed in 2007 and its pupils relocated to Strathmore and Whitehills Primaries in the town.
It explained that class P2/3 had been learning about pirates and sent the message to see how far it would travel.
The paper used for the letter was wrapped in transpaseal to prevent water damage while it travelled at sea.