CUMBERLAND, ME (WHDH) — Three years and over 3,000 miles later, a message in a bottle made its way from Maine to Spain.
Terra Gallo, 14, recently read a letter she never expected would arrive.
Three years ago, she and her sister Nola were visiting their aunt and their mother gave them an idea for a summer afternoon activity.
“We used to throw bottles off the ocean, thought it would be so cool, but they always came right back to us,” Susan Gallo said.
Terra’s mother thought bottles thrown off of Monhegan Island might have a chance to actually go somewhere, so the girls put messages in several bottles and threw them into the ocean.
The bottles floated away and within a couple of months they got a reply. Someone had found a bottle in Cape Elizabeth.
“The first one we got back didn’t travel very far so we sort of forgot about it,” Terra said.
While Terra’s thoughts turned to other pursuits, one of her bottles continued its travels, quietly bobbing its way on the sea for years until a fisherman off the coast of Spain plucked it out of the water.
He just sent Terra a letter.
“At first we were really surprised, wow, Spain then we looked at the ocean current then it made sense as how it goes, sort of goes from Maine to Spain,” Terra said.
“I think it’s so satisfying to get a written letter, a meaningful letter, in the mail hope it will help us write more meaningful letters to others,” Susan Gallo said.