Message in a Bottle

Sailors have long followed the tradition of putting a message in a bottle and hurling it into the sea, sometimes as a call for help after being stranded on a deserted island, sometimes just to see where it goes. With the latter in mind, Latitude 38 decided to drop a message in a bottle (MIB) in a random copy of the April issue to see where it might show up. 

John Schroeder went down to his local West Marine in Anacortes, WA and was lucky enough to get the next-to-last copy of Latitude 38. After finding our "message in a bottle," John — the owner of the 42-ft center cockpit Fraser 42 Hoku Iki — sent in a photo of himself holding the April issue and the lucky message, which offered the recipient some Latitude swag in the form of a hat or t-shirt.  

"I’d really like one of your hats," John responded. So today we’re sending Mr. Schroeder a cap along with our May issue, which hits the stands today up and down the West Coast. Oh yeah, keep a weather eye out for the next MIB, contact us, and we’ll send the appropriate apparel your way.

Over the years, we’ve heard quite a few message in a bottle stories. One of the most amazing was the German beer bottle that was found 101 years after it had been tossed into the ocean. According to our investigative Wikipedia reporting, MIBs were first used around 310 B.C., when the Greek philosopher Theophrastus chucked bottles into the sea to conduct a study of ocean currents. 

Happy hunting, everyone.