Canadian couple’s message in a bottle found 13 years later 2,000 miles away: “A metaphor for resilience”

A message in a bottle thrown into the Atlantic Ocean by a Canadian couple in Newfoundland 13 years ago recently washed ashore a beach in Ireland.

The couple, identified by various U.S. and Canadian media outlets as Brad and Anita Squires, were on Newfoundland’s Bell Island in 2012 when they decided to cast a message out to sea.

“Anita and Brad’s day trip to Bell Island,” the note said. “Today, we enjoyed dinner, this bottle of wine and each other, at the edge of the island.” It asked whoever might find the message to “please call us,” followed by a scribbled number.

“I gave it everything I had,” Brad Squires told The Canadian Press in an interview Wednesday. “We didn’t see it hit the water, it was too high up. I just assumed it smashed on the rocks.”

The bottle survived the throw and for 13 years, it floated across the Atlantic Ocean until it washed up ashore about 2,000 miles away on Scraggane Bay in the Maharees Peninsula along the southwest coast of Ireland.

It was picked up on Monday by Kate and Jon Gay, who shared the discovery with a local conversation group.

“Really? A message in a bottle? Really? Wow!” Kate Gay told CBS News via email on Friday. “We couldn’t see any writing on the paper inside — and decided to save the excitement of opening it until that evening.”

She is a community partner of the Maharees Conservation Association. They are working together to strengthen coastal resilience through creative exploration with the community, she said.

“I thought it would be a fun way to start a project meeting we were having in my house that evening … and I wasn’t wrong!” she said in her email. “That bottle had survived so many storms that have caused damage, erosion and flooding in Maharees … yet it arrived on our beach, that day, a little weathered but holding strong!”

That night, the association shared a post on its Facebook page with photos of the bottle and the message. It quickly went viral.

“Such a long way to travel and such a long time to get here but we got it! Now if only Anita and Brad would just answer the phone they told us to call them on!!!” the post said.

“It seems we let a genie out of that bottle!” Kate Gay said.

Within an hour, the Squires — now married with three children and living in Newfoundland, according to The Canadian Press —  reached out to the conservation group confirming they were the Brad and Anita in the note.

“Anita and I both feel like we have new friends, and we’re all equally amazed,” Brad Squires said.

He and his wife are celebrating their 10th wedding anniversary next year. It is also the conversation association’s 10th year anniversary. 

“It’s such a romantic story – and it has brought joy to so many,” Kate Gay told CBS News. “The ‘message in a bottle’ has gone from being a time capsule of a happy moment on Bell Island to a metaphor for resilience and the ripple effect of positive actions and connections.”