Noah’s message in a bottle came over 2,000 miles

He’s much too young to remember the smash hit in 1979 by the pop group The Police, but a ‘message in a bottle’ is exactly what one Ballymoney schoolboy found on a day trip to the ‘Port’.

By The Newsroom

Published 28th Feb 2019, 14:03 GMT

Leaney Primary School pupil Noah White was walking on the East Strand in Portrush when he spotted a bottle with a message in it.

Exciting enough on its own but when Noah and his family read the message inside they realised just how far the bottle had travelled - over 2,000 miles!

The letter inside came from Students on Ice (SOI) Arctic Expedition 2014.

The message read: “The bottle you have found is part of a Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans survey designed to study large scale ocean circulation. We need your help! By finding this bottle you have become a part of a study of global ocean circulation. Please report finding this bottle and we will tell you how far it has travelled.”

Noah reported the date of the find and the location (giving latitude and longitude).

Noah and his aunt Stacey Dickie soon realised the bottle had come 2,000 miles from Greenland. His grandmother, Irene Dickey, who was on the beach too: “It had been dropped by a student on a Canadian Department of Fisheries vessel near Greenland who was studying water flows. Strangely enough he shared the same surname as Noah. He was really pleased to get an email from us.”