A message in a bottle thrown into the sea in 2009 by a Russian crew of seafarers near Cape Horn was found this month half a world away by an 83-year-old diver in Australia.
A crew of eight, headed by prominent Russian adventurer Fyodor Konyukhov, sailed in a yacht from Australia to South America and the Falkland Islands, Konyukov’s son Oskar, a participant of the expedition, told RIA Novosti on Monday.
Upon passing Cape Horn, one of South America’s southernmost points, the crew wrote a message documenting their travel, put it into the bottle of champagne that they emptied after navigating the dangerous passage around the cape and threw it into the sea on February 12, 2009, Konyukhov Jr. said.
This month, three crew members who specified their email addresses in the letter were contacted by Australian resident Maryanne Jordan Clifford, who said that their message in a bottle was finally received.
On February 12, 2012, exactly three years after the bottle was thrown into the sea, it was found on the beach of the town of Beachport in South Australia, by Clifford’s father Mick Jordan, 83, a diver who has been fishing for crayfish and abalone in those parts for most of his adult life, Clifford said.
During its journey, the bottle traversed the Atlantic and Indian oceans, covering a distance of more than 17,000 kilometers (10,000 miles). The region where it ended up is located a mere four-hour drive away from the Jacobs Creek winery where the bottle was originally produced.
“It’s a small world,” Oskar Konyukhov said in emailed comments.
