The bottle did crash on a beach, but on a beach on a very distant shore.

In late May, Donna got a call from Scotland. The message in the bottle had been picked up by a hotel staff member on a beach in front of the Bara Beach Hotel,on the Isle of Barra, Outer Hebrides Scotland,

The recovery of the bottle created quite a stir in Scotland.

“The newspaper over there, the Daily Record, even contacted the owner of the hotel,” says Donna, adding she was “over the moon” to learn the bottle had travelled so far.

Although the Vardys spend a lot of time on the water, boating around Smith’s Sound and Random Sound, this was the first time they had ever put a message in a bottle and thrown it overboard.

But with their first bottle travelling so far, and creating such a stir, it’s very likely they will write another note, stick it in a bottle and pitch it into the Atlantic to see where the wind and waves may take it.