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When Brad Squires and Anita Moran tossed an empty wine bottle containing a handwritten note into the Atlantic from Bell Island, Newfoundland, they never expected to hear of it again, let alone 13 years and nearly 2,000 miles (3218.6 kms) later!
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At the time, the couple had been dating for a year and navigating a long-distance relationship. He was a police officer in British Columbia, she a trainee nurse in Newfoundland. They had shared a heartfelt picnic on Bell Island, just a 20-minute ferry ride from St. John’s.
“Today we enjoyed dinner, this bottle of wine and each other on the edge of the island,” Anita wrote in the note. “If you find this, please call us,” she added.
“I gave it everything I had,” Brad Squires recalled of hurling the bottle into the sea.
Now married and living in Newfoundland with their three children, the couple was stunned to learn that the bottle had recently been discovered on the shores of Scraggane Bay on Ireland’s Dingle Peninsula.
Bottle surfaces during beach cleanup
The message resurfaced on Monday, found by Kate and Jon Gay, members of the Maharees Conservation Association, during a local beach cleanup. The glass bottle had drifted across the wild Atlantic for over 4,600 days.
“It’s a moment of pure joy,” said Martha Farrell, chair of the conservation group, in an interview with NBC News. “It’s the impossibility and resilience of that glass bottle finding our beach all those years later — but also the resilience of the couple.”
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The group kept the bottle until their evening meeting and eventually smashed it open, hoping to connect with its mystery authors. A social media post followed. And within an hour, Anita Squires responded. “It was phenomenal,” Farrell recalled.
“When Brad threw it, we didn’t even think it would make it to the water, let alone survive and travel across the ocean,” Anita told NBC News. “For all the stars to align, for all those things to happen, it seems like an impossible feat for that little bottle, but it was pretty resilient.”
Now 40 and 35 respectively, Brad and Anita were married in 2016. Their children are Allie, 19, Gabe, 16, and Harrison, 5.
(With inputs from NBC News)
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