A message, without a bottle

A couple of years ago, I read an article about Clint Buffington, a Kentucky teacher and blogger who visits the Caribbean to hunt for messages in bottles.

I was impressed by his results: He told CNN two years ago that he had found more than 40 messages, starting with a 2007 trip to the Turks and Caicos Islands.

He has also managed to contact some of the senders: people like Janet Rockward, who dropped a bottle into the Delaware River after her wedding in 1984.

Ever since reading the beachcomber’s blog, I desperately wanted to find my own message in a bottle.

Unfortunately, it’s not easy: Mr. Buffington estimates that only one in 300,000 bottles contains a message.

So, starting a couple years ago, I periodically tried to contact him for advice on my own quest. He has not responded.

On Sunday, I finally decided to take matters into my own hands, armed only with instructions paraphrased in Mr. Buffington’s CNN interview:

“Forget swimming; instead, find a debris-strewn stretch of beach. Walk slowly, look closely. Tune out the washed-up lightbulbs (they usually outnumber the bottles). Keep walking. And watch for plays of light on glass: Once in a great while, one of those glimmers will be a slip of paper.”

Salvage Beach

After considering my options, I settled on one of the most deserted places I could reach without a boat: the rocky eastern shore of Beef Island, which is appropriately known as Salvage Beach.

To get there, I drove down the bumpy dirt road that skirts Trellis Bay. When I reached the turnoff to the shoreline, I noticed two conch shells hanging from a tree.

“Great!” I thought. “Beachcombers have been here before me: This must be the place!”

Then I had another thought.

“Oh no! Beachcombers have been here before me: They probably got all the bottles!”

I parked and hurried down the road to the waterside. I was not too late: As soon as I emerged from the underbrush, I could see several bottles strewn among the rocks and coral fragments that line the shore — not to mention colourful ropes, nets, jugs, beer cans, shoes, indeterminate plastic shards and other trash.

I could also see something else: news. A sailboat had run aground about half a mile away, and a salvage crew was using a bulldozer to try to free it.

I was mildly annoyed: I had come to find a message in a bottle and write a column about it — not to do legitimate work.

Hundreds of bottles

But duty called. I resolved to scan as many bottles as possible while I made my way toward the salvage operation.

I walked slowly through the debris, skirting aerosol cans and sharp objects.

Within minutes I had seen dozens of bottles. Most were plastic — and thus, I had gathered from Mr. Buffington’s photographs, highly unlikely to contain messages. But I also saw several glass bottles.

At one point, I was excited to notice a green bottle containing a piece of paper. It turned out to be a Snicker’s wrapper.

A clear wine bottle, whose promising glint got my hopes up again, contained only orange slime.

Eventually, I found what appeared to be the mother lode: a bundle of about 100 two-litre bottles tied together with rope.

Alas, they did not contain a bundle of messages: They appeared to be a homemade buoy whose purpose was strictly utilitarian.

By the time I reached the salvage operation, my heart was heavy. I had not found a single message.

Still, I got good pictures of the salvage effort, which gave me a new respect for the risks involved in such operations. (See story on page 4.)

I also discovered some history: a chest-high wall of stone and coral, which I later learned was used to fence in Beef Island cattle as late as the 1950s.

On the way back, I took my time, collecting some of the more interesting items in a trash bag and documenting others with my camera.

Some of the debris suggested a story.

Near a full-sized pillow, for example, I found a tiny cushion that said “Bulova.” At first, I thought it was a dollhouse accessory, but when I Googled the name later, I found a clue: an Amazon review of a “Bulova Men’s Marine Star Bracelet Mother of Pearl Dial Watch.”

“The watch comes in a nice Bulova box and it is wrapped around a tiny Bulova pillow on the inside,” the review read. “I can’t wait to give it to my fiancé on Christmas!”

Unfortunately, I didn’t find a luxury timepiece on Beef Island.

At one point in my walk, I looked up from the ground and noticed three other people on the otherwise deserted shore. They appeared to be beachcombers like me, and I felt a kinship with them, as though we were in an exclusive club.

To my chagrin, I was unable to get close enough to interview them: Apparently, they thought it best to avoid a guy taking photographs of trash, and they moved on before I could catch up.

I rested on a piece of debris: a boat seatback that made for a nice bench. It was reasonably comfortable, and I watched a sailboat pass.

A message, at last

Also on the windy shoreline were a flare, which I didn’t touch; a blue plastic container labelled “Armando,” which I photographed; the dilapidated shell of a 12-foot boat, which looked unusable; and an eerie flip-flop graveyard, where more than a dozen colourful shoes had washed up in a surprisingly small area.

Though I collected several flip-flops in an unsuccessful attempt to get a matching pair, my most useful find was a white construction helmet.

In the end, though, my favourite discovery was an orange-and-red Styrofoam buoy about the size of a volleyball. Angular letters were carved in it: “Soti Du Vent.”

When I Googled the phrase later, I found out that a small fishing vessel of that name is registered in France.

But I prefer to think of the find as a message on a buoy. The words, I learned, are Haitian Creole for “come out of the wind.”

Though I didn’t know it at this time, the phrase was oddly appropriate. Shortly after I found the buoy, I followed its advice: It was getting late, and I went home for dinner.

{fcomment}