BOTTLE SHOCK

Message in a Bottle Discovered After 13 Years and Traveling 2,000 Miles

A time capsule of a Canadian couple’s love was discovered in Ireland on Monday.

On a September evening in 2012, Brad Squires, a police officer in British Columbia, and Anita Moran, a trainee nurse in Newfoundland, went on a picnic date on Bell Island, Canada. After polishing off their second bottle of wine, Moran stuffed it with an account of their date, and Squires tossed it off a nearby cliff. Thirteen years later, they saw their long-forgotten note posted on the Facebook page of an Irish beach conservation association on Monday, which was found at the Dingle Peninsula. Martha Farrell, chair of the Maharees Conservation Association, told NBC News that it was “a moment of pure joy,” and a testament to the “resilience” of the bottle, and of Squires and Moran’s love, who are now nine years married and share three children. “[The bottle] has brought so much joy to so many people,” Farrell said. It has also brought increased attention to the conservation group, which was conducting a cleanup on the Scraggane Bay in County Kerry, near Castlegregory. The association also remarked on the serendipitous parallels: the bottle was also found by a couple, Kate and Jon Gay, and the Maharees isthmus has a similar geographical profile to Newfoundland, where the bottle was sent from.