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WBM september 2010
Ray Cox, on the USS Lookout in 1961, dropped
hundreds of bottles into the sea... one has
come back!
On May 24, 2010, 49 years and three days after
the bottle had been tossed into the ocean, Rich
Dunlap, a physics professor at Dalhousie University
in Halifax, Nova Scotia, found it on Sable Island
in Nova Scotia, Canada, alongside other objects
Dunlap guessed were washed ashore after a storm.
The glass was still in perfect condition,
and the top was sealed so tightly that when
Dunlap opened the bottle, he could smell rem-nants
of the medicine that originally came in
the container. There was no water damage to
the message at all. Dunlap decided to respond
to the letter immediately, found three men
named Jesse Cox living in Wilmington, chose
the one he considered to be the most likely
candidate … and was right!
Now that their connection has been estab-lished,
both Cox and Dunlap are equally
amazed at the length of time between sending
and receipt (49 years, for Pete’s sake!), the mint
condition of both the bottle and message
inside and the fact that Dunlap actually found
Cox alive and well and living in North Carolina.
For his part, Cox doubts that he will toss more
messages into the ocean, but feels immensely
excited that one of his bottles, circa 1961, has
finally found its way home. — Amanda Thames