Message in a Bottle Connects NOAA’s Albatross IV to Azores Resident
Shelley Dawicki
NOAA Fisheries, Northeast Fisheries Science Center
Gen Contey, NOAA Office of Communications
May 26, 2009 — The last thing Agostinho Costa Lima probably expected to find washed up on the shore of his remote island of Corvo was a message-filled bottle.
Romance novels and a Kevin Costner movie aside, it’s not every day a stranger finds a long-lost message in a bottle. In Lima’s case, he found one of 32 bottles tossed over the side of the now decommissioned NOAA research vessel Albatross IV during its final research cruise off the New England coast last November.
Scientist Larry Brady and NOAA chief scientist Linda Despres fill their personal bottles with messages about the Albatross IV in the ship's main lab. Photo credit: NOAA.
The recycled wine bottle had traveled thousands of miles without breaking to Corvo, part of the Azores islands in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. An Albatross IV postcard, curled up inside, documented when and where the bottles were dropped; it also provided a return address for its potential retriever.
A letter sent to NOAA chief scientist Linda Despres from Agostinho Lima, a resident of the island of Corvo, in the Azores, who found one of 32 message-filled bottles thrown overboard during the Albatross IV’s last research cruise off the shores of New England. The letter had been translated into English from Portuguese by Lima’s friend. Graphic credit: With permission from Agostinho Costa Lima.
The lucky finder responded in kind with his own message — a handwritten note that came back to Linda Despres, the vessel’s chief scientist via the mail. Lima also included two picture postcards from Corvo.
“Just writing to let you know your bottle with the message was found on March 23 at 9:00 am,” wrote Lima, a Corvo resident who works at the island’s town hall.
Chris Legault, a research biologist with the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, launched the message-filled bottle commemorating the Albatross IV that was found on the island of Corvo, in the Azores. Photo credit: NOAA.
The bottles were thrown overboard by each scientist and crew member aboard the Albatross IV when the vessel was furthest from land and as close as it would come to the Gulf Stream. In addition to an Albatross IV postcard, each bottle contained a group photo with a personal message on the back recalling a favorite shipboard experience or, in some cases, a musing on what made the vessel so special to them.
Agostinho Costa Lima, a resident of the island of Corvo in the Azores found one of 32 message-filled bottles thrown over the side of the Albatross IV. He is pictured with the bottle’s contents: an Albatross IV postcard and group photo of the scientists and crew members onboard during the ship’s final research mission last November. Photo Credit: With permission from Agostinho Lima.
In a few bottles, crew members included some unusual “extras” as part of the bounty: a knitted item, a menu, chopsticks, and even earplugs. (Unlike in the movies, however, no love letters were penned.)
“We all assembled on the back deck … the Captain threw the first bottle and then there was a group throw,” wrote Despres, chief scientist for the Albatross IV’s last cruise, in a log she kept during the voyage. “Interestingly, all of the bottles were still grouped together [in the water] prior to us moving on to the next station.”
A group photo of the scientists and crew aboard the Albatross IV during its final research voyage last November. The photo and a postcard of the ship were inserted into bottles thrown overboard during a special ceremony to commemorate the vessel’s decommissioning. Photo Credit: NOAA.
After receiving Lima’s letter, Despres sent back a FedEx package containing a thank-you note, an Albatross IV hat, and a commemorative program from the ship’s decommissioning ceremony. In her letter, she asked Lima to reply with a photo of the bottle’s message so she could identify which crew member’s bottle he had found.
As luck would have it, the package got held up in Portugal due to an incomplete address — which might be hard to fathom given that Corvo Island has only about 450 residents.
Despres, determined to have Lima send the photo sooner than later, consulted some of her colleagues for advice. One of them referred her to Rui Prieto, a visiting scientist working at Woods Hole who happened to be from the island of Faial, also in the Azores. When Prieto heard the story, he was beside himself: during one of his past visits to Corvo he had actually met Lima. Prieto also had a friend in Corvo who would meet Lima, take a photo of him and the bottle’s contents, and e-mail it back. The e-mail arrived on May 17.
Upon receiving the photo, Despres immediately contacted Christopher Legault, a research biologist with the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, to tell him it was his bottle, which had been found.
In a plot twist that brings to mind “six degrees of separation,” Legault was stunned for another reason entirely: Prieto had been at his house last summer for a get-together.
“It’s just unbelievable,” says Despres. “Rui Prieto not only knows the man who found the bottle, but also the man who tossed the bottle. This whole story makes the memories I have of my 36 years on the Albatross IV that much more special.”
To learn more about the colorful 46-year legacy of the Albatross IV, please visit: http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/press_release/2008/News/NR0829/index.html.
The 187-foot Albatross IV made its last scientific cruise in November 2008.
Photo credit: Shelley Dawicki, NOAA.