Tragedy and comedy in a bottle

Press, 29 July 1978, Page 15

Tragedy and comedy in a bottle

By

ROBYN JENKIN

TWO fishermen at Castle- I point Beach, east of Mas- ] . terton. have found a bottle. 1 washed •up • that was-| thrown overboardsome T , ■ where in the Pacific from I a yacht durinn the Whitbread round-the-world race last year. The reward for.- their lucky find .is. three bottles of 'Portuguese port. The bottle, tossed overboard • from John Ridgeway’s yacht Debenhams, contains a message written in four languages," • including English, that the , “finder of this bottle is’ 1 entitled to a prize of three bottles of Fonesca Bin 27.” to be’sent free of charge. A return address 1 in. Portugal is.enclosed for i the, reward.

Messages in bottles. What thoughts they conjure up. Reminders of the old pirate days when some starving castaway sealed his hopes into a bottle and prayed for its recovery by some passing ship . • • The dream too, of every beachcomber. So when I read the recent account of just such a message being found by two fishermen at Castlepoint, with its promise of three bottles of port, I began to turn over my

“Dearest, I am sending afloat this little note. If it reaches you I will be happv. It conveys just all I would say if I were near vou and perhaps even more than words could express. Only you will understand. Au revoir for a little while. With heaps of love. Your Margot.” A simple love note? Ah. but much more. For that romantic little note was sealed into a bottle and cast into the sea on October 3, 1913, and was not to see the light of day again for 30 years. It was addressed to J. Wolfram, esq., Canterbury Club. New Zealand. J. Wolfram was a German woolbuyer who stayed in Christchurch for two 'ears, leaving in 1913, never to return. In February, 1943, Margot’s note to her dearest was picked up on Moruya Beach. 150 miles south of Sydney — just 30 years too late. What became of J.

Wolfram and his Margot? D’.J they ever meet again? Did he survive the Great War or the Second World War? Who knows, but I like to think that such romantic beginnings have a happy ending. But not all bottled messages are the work of romantic dreamers. Over the years, the United States Bureau of Commercial Fisheries has set adrift thousands of bottles in an effort to trace the ocean currents. Inside, the bottles contain a questionnaire to be filled in by the finder and sent back to the bureau.

Similarly, between 10.000 and 20,000 bottles are released each year from Woods Hole Institute off the east coast of America. All aspects of marine biology are studied at the. institute and the bottles indicate not only the ocean currents but the routes taken by various larval forms of marine life. Records of these bottles show that many have, travelled phenomenal distances, some as far as 16.000 miles. Closer to home, two Tasmanian schoolgirls. Caroline Murtagh and Prue Hopkins, were studying ocean currents for a school project. They tossed a bottle into the Derwent back in March, 1962, and imagine their surprise when it landed on the beach at Pohara in February, 1963. Their map of currents had not shown any that would touch New Zealand. Another amateur oceanographer was the Rev. George Hoskins, of Mount Rodney, St Helena, who cast his bottle into the sea in January, 1939, with a note advising the finder to notify the nearest oceanographic institute. His bottle turned up on the rocks at Ngahauranga, Wellington. Of course, children have always been hopeful writers of messages in

bottles, and at least three of their messages have turned up on the New Zealand coast. In May, 1956, a New Plymouth schoolgirl, Pamela Williamson, threw her bottle into the Mimi stream and in less than a month strong northerlies blew it down the coast and landed it at Nine-mile beach near Charleston where it was picked up by a gold prospector, Mr L. E. Powell, of Charleston. His find developed into a firm friendship, and 18 months later the schoolgirl and the gold miner met for the first time.

And what about the bottle “posted” in the sea in 1964 by Master I. Gaywood, of Kent, England. That letter took three years but was finally delivered on to Brighton beach, Christchurch, where it was picked up by Anne Denton, of Bryndwr. When five-year-old Kiern

McLerlean, of Clad, Port Glencoe, Northern Ireland, threw his bottle into the Claddy, near his home, never in his wildest dreams could he have imagined where it would end up. As luck would have it, the Claddy was in flood, so the bottle tossed its way down to the large river Bann and thence out to sea. After a turbulant five years it finally came to rest in Lyall Bay, Wellington By far the greatest number of bottles are thrown from passing ships. Eight months after being thrown overboard, a rum bottle was picked up at Scott’s Point at the north end of 90-mile beach. In addition to a water-stained letter, the bottle contained a photograph of the sender — a serious young matelot standing at the stern of a ship beneath the flag of France. The message contained a farewell message to Australia from the

young Frenchman, retumto Noumea on the “Quebec.” “Crossing the Line” has always been an excuse for shipboard celebrations and several bottles have arrived on the New Zealand coast as a result of these parties. Others have been tossed overboard by New Zealanders only to land far from their h -neland.

Mr A. B. Papesch, travelling from Auckland to Honolulu in 1965, threw a bottle over the equator and it was found by a school boy in the southern Gilbert Islands; while the bottle of another Aucklander, W. Angus, travelling in the same direction that year, landed up in the British Solomons.

In 1972, Craig Hughes, of Mount Albert, found a bottle containing an inde-

cipherable note. However, Craig’s dad was a detective so the police experts went to work on the note and were able to come up with the information that it had been thrown from the S.S. Canberra in 1969. But not all bottles were thrown into the sea after a “farewell dinner” or a jubilant “Crossing the Line.” In September, 1956, Joan Reynolds, a young Whangarei girl, found a bottle on Ruakaka beach. She took it home and carefully dried the stained note.

It read: "Whoever finds this bottle, would they please write to this address, 42821 Gunner M. Palmer, Heavy Battery, 2nd N.Z.E.FJM.Z.P.O. 400 and Mrs J. Palmer, Waipu, Whangarei, North Island,

New Zealand.” The note was dated March 25, 1943. But for Mrs Palmer, of Waipu, the note came 13 years too late. Gunner Palmer was dead, killed in action at Rimini 19 months after he had written the note. He had thrown the bottle overboard as the troopship was passing close to Norfolk Island. It had homed in to a beach only seven miles from his mother’s home. But what about the bottle found in the sandhills of Tangimoana by John Mant, of Palmerston North. The message, found in 1958, was written on the back of a telegram sent by a young lady in Wellington. It read: “Goodbye, good luck.” But on the reverse was a message: "Sunday, 1 o’clock p.m. troopship Willochra, 12 hours sail from Wellington August 15, 1915. To the finder of this note, please convey

our heartfelt thanks to the many happy faces who farewelled us at Wellington.” It was signed: “Sappers, S. C. Kennedy, Ronald M. Grant, S. Dunwall, N.Z. Field Engineers, and J. Louden, W. Mann, Linton and H. Travis, N.Z.E. Below the signatures were the words: “Au revoir, 150 miles out of .Wellington.”

In those 43 years, what had become of those men? Mr Ronald Grant, of Christchurch, was able to verify that the note was genuine. Sapper Kennedy had been killed in action on the Somme, and in 1958 the girl who sent the telegram was still living in Christchurch.

Forty-three years is a long time, but it is not the record for a bottle found on the New Zealand coast. That honour is held by a note found by Mr' R. Bouid, of Tangimoana, in 1955.

The message, though faded, was still distinct. It was a form from the German Naval Office, Hamburg, headed "Report on Ocean Currents” and was put into the sea at Kerguelen Island in March, 1903. It asked in German, English and French for certain details to be filled in before its return to a German Consulate or Hamburg.

But even 52 years falls far short of the world record. That must surely go to a bottle found in Japan in 1935. Inside were messages on small pieces of wood. They recorded the harrowing experiences of the crew of a Japanese ship which foundered off an uncharted coral island ■n 1784. It recounted the fate of 'he 45 crew members who vere dying of starvation Matsuyama, who survived longer than some of them, wrote their story on the pieces of wood and sealed them in a bottle. By the long arm of coincidence, the bottle turned up 150 years later, not far from Matsuyama’s birthplace. But perhaps the saddest New Zealand story of a note in a bottle concerned the sailing ship Matoaka which sailed from Lyttelton on May 13. 1869. Besides a passenger list of several prominent Canter-

bury citizens, she also carried a valuable cargo of fossils, on their way to Professor Owen, in London, from Dr Von Haast, in Christchurch. From that day, nothing more was heard of the ship. She just seemed to have vanished without a trace. Then came a ray of hope In February', 1872, a Mr Shepherd and his son were fossicking on Ocean Beach near Dunedin, when they found a bottle containing the following message: “1870 March 27; Ship Matoaka. Captain and myself (Ist Mate) and 7 A.B.s are in long boat . .. N of New Guinea. Passengers all lost. Trust this will meet ... pick up this bottle when drifting about. Ist Mate.”

Then the blow felL The handwriting was compared with signatures held by the shipping agents and it was soon clear that the writing bore no resemblance to any signatures in their possession. The whole affair had been a cruel hoax. But the notes are not all sad. After all, the finders of the latest bottle are to be rewarded with three bottles of vintage port. What might the next bottle hold. A buried treasure map? Who knows! But, anyway, good hunting.