Oceanography Student's Message in a Bottle Travels from NJ to the Caribbean

A message in a bottle, released off the coast of New Jersey by an SCH Oceanography student over four years ago, has just been found on the east coast of Barbuda in the West Indies. Upper School Science teacher Kim Eberle-Wang recently shared the incredible story of this particular bottle: "After a four-year drift, it circumnavigated the Atlantic, traveling from New Jersey to the west coast of Africa and finally back to the Caribbean, where a lucky beachcomber discovered it."

The beachcomber described the area where she found the bottle as "exposed to strong Atlantic currents" and often full of debris, including "plastic trash, fishing gear, plastic bottles, household cleaning supplies..." She said that "sometimes among the trash, there are some treasures,” including messages in a bottle, of which she has found several over the years, but none with a letter as legible as this one, written in January 2021.

The message in a bottle project at SCH has been going on for a decade: Just before the pandemic, an SCH bottle turned up on a beach in Cuba after 4.5 years at sea. Students write letters, which include contact information for the school if found, roll them up, wrap them with string, put them in a bottle, and seal the bottle with hot wax. Oceanographers use bottles like this one as drift meters to discover the motion of the surface currents, in this case, the North American Gyre. Eberle-Wang considers the project a great way for students to explore ocean currents and the unexpected connections between students and beachgoers that these currents can forge. Several have been discovered in recent years. 

In an email to Eberle-Wang, the discoverer recounted the excitement of finding the bottle: "We were all very excited that it was perfectly readable and we were all wondering what the bottle had been through." Oceanography students can tell you!