Message in a bottle floats to Cape Town

When the captain of a submarine threw a message in a bottle overboard in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, he thought he would never see it again.

But two years and two months later, Commodore Darren White's message was picked up by a father and son walking along Pringle Bay, 1600 nautical miles from where it was dropped.

White, who is captain of the SAS Charlotte Maxeke, told the Cape Times he had been doing exercises with South American navies and decided to write a message in a bottle on their way back home.

"I kept a wine bottle from a function we had while alongside in Argentina. I typed out the message, put a picture of the crew with it and put it in a plastic sleeve in a bottle," he said.

The captain said the crew chuckled when he tossed the bottle to sea.

According to the report, the bottle was picked up on the beach about 20 nautical miles from White's Simon's Town naval base last Saturday.

"Anything could have happened to that bottle... but it came all this way back. If I stand here at work [in Simon's Town], I can look across the bay to the spot where it washed up," a pleased White said.

The typed message said:

"Hello to whoever finds this. I have never done this before so am not sure of the result. Hopefully this bottle remains intact and travels several thousand miles to distant shores. My name is Darren White. I am the captain of the South African Submarine SAS CHARLOTTE MAXEKE. We are in transit back to South Africa from exercises in Argentina and Uruguay."

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