An 11-year-old US boy was stunned to get a reply to his message in a bottle from Portugal’s Azores Islands – via the more surefire medium of email.
Curtis Kipple wrote a letter about himself and his hometown in New York state, and put it in a bottle which was dropped into the Atlantic in March. The message was found last week by Ana Ponte, 25, from a fishing village in the island of Terceira, on the Azores archipelago.
The fifth-grader’s bottle had travelled 2,600 miles (4,190km). “My brother and my father wake up earlier today and went to sea to catch a seafood very common here, and found a bottle with a message from a boy Curtis Kipple,” said Ms Ponte’s email -written in both English and Portuguese – to Curtis’s school.
The bottle was set adrift 10 months ago by a fisherman off North Carolina’s
Outer Banks. Chris Albrecht – Curtis’s teacher at Fred W Hill School in Brockport, New
York state – said the project had really caught the children’s imagination.”Curtis had tears in his eyes when I told him the news,” said Mr Albrecht.
Outer Banks. Chris Albrecht – Curtis’s teacher at Fred W Hill School in Brockport, New
York state – said the project had really caught the children’s imagination.”Curtis had tears in his eyes when I told him the news,” said Mr Albrecht.
The boy’s bottled message was not the first to be found – another was discovered in Nova Scotia in June – but Curtis’s has travelled the farthest.
Mr Albrecht, who teaches language, arts and science, said it was a useful
exercise for teaching children about geography and how to write formal
letters.
exercise for teaching children about geography and how to write formal
letters.