Message in a bottle from Canada arrives in Ireland after 8 years at sea -
Oisin Millea can hardly believe his luck — and instant fame he’s gained — from sorting through “rubbish” along the shoreline near his home in Ireland.
The nine-year-old schoolboy, along with his photographer mother Aoife Millea, 31, was looking at the flotsam and jetsam washed up on the shores of the tiny village of Passage East, County Waterford, last week by a particularly high tide when he discovered a two-litre green plastic pop bottle with something inside it.
It turned out to be a note, written in French, from two 12-year-old Montreal girls, Charlaine and Claudia, tossed into the Gulf of St, Lawrence in 2004 while they were vacationing in the Gaspe.
Eight years and 5,100 kilometres later, it arrived.
“I only thought it was a piece of rubbish . . . I really didn’t think anything until I opened it,” Oisin told the Toronto Star from his home on the east coast of Ireland, southeast of Waterford town.
The two scrambled back home to run the note through Google translate. The date was all they could make out.
Oisin’s surprising find has now made him “famous” among his classmates and launched a search for the two girls (no last names), now women, who said in their note they got idea from a TV show about young people putting messages in bottles. The mystery bottle has captured the attention of media on both sides of the Atlantic.
“If you find our bottle, tell us when and how you found our bottle. Also tell us your name, age, place of residence. Example: Paris, Miami, etc . . . To contact us write to us at: cheval-rouge95@hotmail.com,” the message read. Unfortunately the email address not longer works.
But the two girls have been identified as Charlaine Dalpé and Claudia Garneau, according to the Montreal Gazette.
The original message from 2004 stated:
“Hello, we are two girls who had the idea to launch a bottle into the sea. We are called Charlaine and Claudia. We are both 12 and we live in Montreal. We are on vacation in the Gaspésie, in the village of Grande Vallée. We had the idea to launch a bottle into the sea because we saw a TV show about young people putting messages in bottles. If you find our bottle, tell us when and how you found our bottle. Also tell us your name, age, place of residence. Example: Paris, Miami, etc ... To contact us write to us at: cheval-rouge95@hotmail.com”
To finish, if you don’t have Internet, go to a friend’s or go to an Internet café because we are very curious to know if our bottle was found.
Charlaine and Claudia”
Aoife Millea said even after all those years, the note, which was rolled up and held together by a hair tie, was bone dry and written on the back of map of the area in the Gaspe where the bottle was launched.
“It was a really, really high tide that came in around the houses into the streets. This was the good news from the high tides,” she said, explaining the village is located on the River Suir estuary.
Millea said Oisin is “over the moon because he is quite the treasure hunter. This could not have happened to anyone better.”
“He was wondering if he was too famous to go to school today,” she told the Star.
It wasn’t until Millea and her son translated the note they realized it was from Quebec and not France. “He was even more excited that it came from Canada,” she said.
Millea said her son is eager to meet the women, now 20, who wrote the note, which he now plans to frame.
At last notice, Oisin was hoping to speak to Charlaine and Claudia by Skype sometime Tuesday.
Read more -
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1275913--message-in-a-bottle-from-canada-arrives-in-ireland-after-8-years-at-sea
Oisin Millea can hardly believe his luck — and instant fame he’s gained — from sorting through “rubbish” along the shoreline near his home in Ireland.
The nine-year-old schoolboy, along with his photographer mother Aoife Millea, 31, was looking at the flotsam and jetsam washed up on the shores of the tiny village of Passage East, County Waterford, last week by a particularly high tide when he discovered a two-litre green plastic pop bottle with something inside it.
It turned out to be a note, written in French, from two 12-year-old Montreal girls, Charlaine and Claudia, tossed into the Gulf of St, Lawrence in 2004 while they were vacationing in the Gaspe.
Eight years and 5,100 kilometres later, it arrived.
“I only thought it was a piece of rubbish . . . I really didn’t think anything until I opened it,” Oisin told the Toronto Star from his home on the east coast of Ireland, southeast of Waterford town.
The two scrambled back home to run the note through Google translate. The date was all they could make out.
Oisin’s surprising find has now made him “famous” among his classmates and launched a search for the two girls (no last names), now women, who said in their note they got idea from a TV show about young people putting messages in bottles. The mystery bottle has captured the attention of media on both sides of the Atlantic.
“If you find our bottle, tell us when and how you found our bottle. Also tell us your name, age, place of residence. Example: Paris, Miami, etc . . . To contact us write to us at: cheval-rouge95@hotmail.com,” the message read. Unfortunately the email address not longer works.
But the two girls have been identified as Charlaine Dalpé and Claudia Garneau, according to the Montreal Gazette.
The original message from 2004 stated:
“Hello, we are two girls who had the idea to launch a bottle into the sea. We are called Charlaine and Claudia. We are both 12 and we live in Montreal. We are on vacation in the Gaspésie, in the village of Grande Vallée. We had the idea to launch a bottle into the sea because we saw a TV show about young people putting messages in bottles. If you find our bottle, tell us when and how you found our bottle. Also tell us your name, age, place of residence. Example: Paris, Miami, etc ... To contact us write to us at: cheval-rouge95@hotmail.com”
To finish, if you don’t have Internet, go to a friend’s or go to an Internet café because we are very curious to know if our bottle was found.
Charlaine and Claudia”
Aoife Millea said even after all those years, the note, which was rolled up and held together by a hair tie, was bone dry and written on the back of map of the area in the Gaspe where the bottle was launched.
“It was a really, really high tide that came in around the houses into the streets. This was the good news from the high tides,” she said, explaining the village is located on the River Suir estuary.
Millea said Oisin is “over the moon because he is quite the treasure hunter. This could not have happened to anyone better.”
“He was wondering if he was too famous to go to school today,” she told the Star.
It wasn’t until Millea and her son translated the note they realized it was from Quebec and not France. “He was even more excited that it came from Canada,” she said.
Millea said her son is eager to meet the women, now 20, who wrote the note, which he now plans to frame.
At last notice, Oisin was hoping to speak to Charlaine and Claudia by Skype sometime Tuesday.
Read more -
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1275913--message-in-a-bottle-from-canada-arrives-in-ireland-after-8-years-at-sea
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