Miraculous message in a bottle from Antarctica: friendship across oceans!

Miraculous message in a bottle from Antarctica: friendship across oceans!

The curiosity and mystery that shrouds the seas are always topics that captivate us. In a particularly fascinating case, Johann Klages, a researcher at Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, recently received a reply to a message in a bottle that he had sent during an expedition to Antarctica. The bottle, which he put into the water north of 60 degrees south at the end of February 2023, contained greetings from his children, Eva and Anton, and was sent especially for Christmas time.

Almost three years later, at the contemplative time of Christmas 2025, the message in a bottle caught the attention of a finder on Tasmania's Ocean Beach, the state's longest beach. The finder, Toby Ray, who was traveling with a friend, described his find as overwhelming and likened it to looking for a needle in a haystack. His attempt to contact Klages via a letter initially failed - it was returned as undeliverable. But then he found Klages on the Internet and contact via email began. This led to a lively exchange and the two men became friends.

A journey full of surprises

It's hard to believe that the bottle apparently traveled at least 15,000 kilometers - and that in a maximum of 900 days. That's an average speed of 19 cm/s or 0.7 km/h. Klages expressed surprise at the fact that the message in a bottle, thrown into the powerful Antarctic Circumpolar Current, actually ended up in Tasmania. “I’m just happy that the message in a bottle arrived,” said Klages.

The scientific aspects of this find should not be underestimated. The bottle drifted clockwise around the Antarctic continent, influenced by the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC). Klages plans to investigate the drift more closely, as a vortex likely carried the bottle to the shore. There is even a measurement buoy near the site that recorded wave heights of over 15 meters in the days before Ray was found.

A piece of history and science

Messages in a bottle are not only a romantic relic of sea adventures and holiday greetings, but they are also used in science to measure currents. The Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH) keeps an impressive collection of messages in a bottle that have been used to scientifically record currents since Georg Ritter Balthasar von Neumayer's message in a bottle experiment in 1864.

With a probability of discovery of around 10% and a collection of 662 letters in a bottle returned by the BSH, it becomes clear how invaluable these finds are for science. In the past, significant losses, such as the 30,000 plastic bathing animals that went overboard in 1992, have been tracked to gain valuable information about ocean currents.

Johann Klages reveals that he is looking forward to the upcoming Christmas parties, where the story of his message in a bottle and the contact with Toby Ray will be a very special topic. He will set off for Antarctica again at the beginning of 2027 with the research ship “Polarstern”, and we can look forward to seeing what further surprises the sea has in store.