Craig's message in a bottle travels 1,900 miles from Newfoundland to Baltimore

A MESSAGE in a bottle, which was thrown into the Atlantic by a Newfoundland fisherman, was found earlier this month – almost exactly four months later – by a West Cork fisherman.

Craig Drover, a ‘snow crab’ fisherman from Bryant’s Cove in Newfoundland, threw the bottle, containing a short letter, into the sea at the Grand Banks off Newfoundland on June 28th.

While potting shrimps near Baltimore harbour on the afternoon of November 1st, local fisherman John Leonard spotted the clear glass bottle bobbing in the water.

‘I saw the bottle near the shore and I picked it up and found a letter wrapped in a plastic freezer bag inside it,’ John told The Southern Star. ‘It was a grand, clear day.’

The bottle contained a short note from Craig, who said: ‘This bottle was tossed over the side of the fishing vessel Atlantic Eagle on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, Canada, while fishing for snow crab.’

He also gave the GPS co-ordinates for the boat, which showed it just west of St John’s, the capital of Newfoundland.

It means the message travelled a distance of 1,900 miles to get to Baltimore – or approximately 20 miles a day – from America to Europe.

 ‘I’m always looking out for bottles,’ said John, who has been fishing for 40 years. ‘I once found a bottle on the Ilen River that had been thrown in at Heir Island, but that wasn’t too far compared with this!’

Craig, who gave his address at Bryant’s Cove, also included his email address and this week sent a detailed reply to The Southern Star.

Craig said his hobby is writing messages in bottles and it was the 77th time he had been successful. 

He already has replies from Spain (12), Portugal (2), England (10), Scotland (11), France (16), Faroe Islands (2), USA (2), Bahamas (3), Norway (1) and, unsurprisingly, Ireland tops his list, with 18 replies. ‘My very first reply was from Ireland, found in Castletownbere in 2006,’ he told The Southern Star.

‘Even though I’ve had numerous replies back, when I receive a new one it’s just as exciting as the first.’

Craig, a crab and shrimp fisherman, is the owner and captain of the Arctic Eagle trawler and while he has never been to Ireland, he is hoping to visit here in the next few years. ‘I don’t have any Irish connections, but some of my extended family have strong Irish roots. We love Irish music. About 25% of Newfoundland population is of Irish descent, mainly on the south east coast. We are frequent travellers, and our accent has often been mistaken for Irish!’