Scuba diving instructor Phoebe Eggar ascended through the clear water and emerged on the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.
She reflexively looked for her boat and spotted it over her shoulder about 50 feet away; in the opposite direction, she saw something else. A bottle, containing something, gently bobbed in the water.
That can’t be, she thought.
On June 24, Eggar discovered a message in a bottle about five miles off the coast of Bermuda with only one clue to its origin: Its author was from Norfolk.
The message read:
This bottle is part of a marine water currents project. Please send an email with the date and location of where you found it. Send the email to:
bottletrackrva@outlook.com
Reference # L-232022
Next, please put this note back in the bottle and relaunch the bottle, at outgoing tide if possible.
Thank you.
This bottle was launched__Dec. 23, 2022
From Norfolk, VA USA
Eggar, the other dive instructors and her boss, Chris Gauntlett, at Blue Water Divers in Bermuda, emailed the address but have not received a response.
None, including Gauntlett, who has been professionally diving for 30 years, has ever found a message in a bottle, and they want the public’s help to solve the mystery.
Gauntlett said it was blind luck that they found the bottle at all.
The day began as a routine morning. Gauntlett, Eggar and another instructor, Justin Hendrix, left the dock around 9 to take a small group of clients scuba diving near West Blue Cut. When they reached the coral reef, they anchored in a spot they never had before and descended in two groups.
Hendrix’s group resurfaced first and reported to Gauntlett that they’d spotted an uncharted wreck in the water, which was about 50 feet deep. Gauntlett, the captain, wanted to take a look himself and left the boat just as Eggar was surfacing.
“I didn’t have enough air in my tank to go down with him,” she said. “So, I decided that I would watch from the surface … and I look to my right and see something behind me.”
She swam toward it thinking it might be trash, “a beer can or something.”
But as she neared, her excitement grew. She fought through a strong current and seized the bottle. She felt an immediate urge to shout to the others about what she’d found but first focused on making it to a dragline, a rope about 35 feet long towed behind the boat for returning and tired divers to grab.
As soon as she grabbed the line, she screamed to Hendrix:
“I’ve got a message in a bottle!”
Hoping it was a treasure map, she opened the bottle as soon as Gauntlett returned from exploring the wreck. Although the message didn’t contain an X marking a spot, its description of an oceanic research project was, to Eggar, like gold of a different sort.
“I’m an ocean lover. I love other people who are as intrigued as I am in the ocean.”
Anyone with information about the message in the bottle can contact Blue Water Divers Bermuda through WhatsApp at +1 441 234-1034.
Colin Warren-Hicks, 919-818-8138, colin.warrenhicks@virginiamedia.com
