Hi! Kelsey here again. Do I have a great story for you guys today! Recently I was tagged in an interesting comment that was posted on the SeaTrek BVI Facebook wall (April 23rd if you go looking for it). It was a reminder of an exciting and mysterious correspondence some of the kids and staff on our boat found ourselves in while anchored at Key Bay in the BVI. The posting contained a friendly note from someone none of us have ever met. Here’s the story:
After another exciting dive at Seatrek we dropped anchor in Key Bay and a few students accompanied by a staff member from my boat went to explore the island. We swam to shore and hiked up the hill. On the way to the top we found many cool things but at the top of the hill we found the coolest thing of all! We found a rock formation with a bottle sticking out of the top. Of course as curious Seatrek students we had to see what was inside. We opened the bottle and found a letter that was left there awhile ago by someone we didn’t know. Once we were finished reading, we decided we had to write one in return and leave it in the bottle- just to see what would happen. One of us did take a picture of that letter but none of us can seem to find it right now. If we do, I’ll be sure we post it here as a follow up story. Anyway, we excitedly raced back to the boat and started writing our letter! We told the original bottle messager that we were at a fantastic camp exploring the BVI and that we had found their bottle! Our minds were full of imagination and guesses about the people who wrote the message and when they hid the bottle there- and especially about anyone else who might find our note and the original note in the future. When we finished composing our letter on the boat, we had the obstacle of swimming back to the island without getting the letter wet! YIKES! We were able to make it back to the island with a pretty dry letter (ha) and we added our letter to the other letter that was inside the bottle in hopes that someone find it and let us know they did!
Alexis was one of the biologists on that voyage and she was with us that day, so she left a contact address that future “bottle finders” could use to contact us. Well someone DID find it and the message below came recently. See? This is why it’s always a great adventure when we voyage with SeaTrek! We write our own adventures!
Hello,
My husband and I just returned from a 3 week bare boat charter in the BVIs. We’ve been going to the BVIs since 1987. Sometime in the 90’s we climbed the hill overlooking Key Bay and found a box, buried in a pile of stones. Inside the box was a notebook. Each page had a note from different people who had found the box – many of the notes were written as poems. We added our entry several times. This time, when we climbed the hill, the box was gone. Instead, there was a bottle with 2 pieces of paper. One was from your group!
I hope you return to Key Bay and find our notebook and add a new entry. This tradition has been lots of fun over the years!
Let me know that this message has found you.
Happy Trails to you,
Gwen and Randy Houser
Seattle, Washington
1.877.467.2454
e-mail us
