WELLAND, Ontario — Cheryl McKee was surprised to find online a story about the discovery of a 12-year-old message in a bottle that she wrote for her daughter Taryn, who was 3, while on vacation in New Brunswick in 2000.
“As soon as I saw it I said, ‘That’s my writing’,” Cheryl told the Welland Tribune on Tuesday after a Bangor Daily News story went international, adding that she also wrote a letter for her son Jacob, who was 2 at the time. “I asked her [Taryn] about the trip and wrote it for her. I suggested throwing the bottles in the ocean.”
The note was discovered recently by Becky Lee of the Downeast Coastal Conservancy while the group was doing a volunteer cleanup on Tibbett Island off the Washington County community of South Addison.
The note reads: “My name is Taryn and I’m 3 years old. I live in Welland, Ontario and spent my 1st real vacation in New Brunswick. I really loved seeing the ocean, but it was very cold so I couldn’t swim in it. I really liked collecting shells and pretty rocks off of the beach. I saw whales and seals. I had so much fun. I hope you like my letter. See ya!”
Taryn McKee told Welland Tribune reporter Dave Johnson that she is surprised by all of the attention the message and bottle had generated and she doesn’t remember throwing the plastic soda bottle in the ocean on the last day of the family trip in Letete, New Brunswick.
“I was surprised it actually came up,” Taryn, now 15, told her hometown newspaper. “I wonder where Jacob’s is … they found mine.”
Taryn told the paper that she remembers parts of the vacation, collecting seashells and crab legs on the shoreline.
“I remember the house we stayed in that was apparently haunted … and I got seasick when we were whale-watching, I remember that,” she said.
Both she and her mother said they never thought the bottle and its message would be found.
“I had hopes it would go far,” said Cheryl. “Who would have thought, 12 years later.”
Taryn said she has only vague recollections of the New Brunswick vacation and no memory that her mother wrote the note.
“I guess it works,” Taryn told the Tribune of throwing a message in a bottle into the ocean.
very cool.
it’s like a floating time capsule!
In what would otherwise be more plastic trash in the ocean.
Sorry, that was uncalled for. I’m feeling a bit acerbic tonight.
Thats OK, Your forgiven. =D
This is exactly why plastic in the ocean is a problem. This bottle easily lasted 12 years….
I don’t mind saying that I’m happy for Taryn that her message in a bottle came back to her after all that time, truly amazing. She wasn’t trying to degrade the ocean, she wanted to see if her bottle would get back to her and it did..
too bad it didn’t float some where better than Maine
You could go there are look. Don’t hurry back.
Such a cool story! Good job bdn!
This is a neat thing to do.
Pretty smart 3-year-old to be able to write a message.
“Cheryl McKee was surprised to find online a story about the discovery of a 12-year-old message in a bottle that she wrote for her daughter Taryn, who was 3, while on vacation in New Brunswick in 2000.”
I missed a prepositional phrase, “for her daughter.” It’s my day off.
Mom was the ghost writer. Guess staying in a haunted house gave her the inspiration.
↓↓↓↓Always a Negative Nancy and Debbie Downer in the bunch. ↓↓↓↓
and in other news…
As a 12-year-old, I too would have been thrilled
i’ll throw a bottle into the ocean and it would probably wind up back at me
Text messages…..the old fashioned way!
Took longer then I thought it would for the hippies to start complaining about plastic in the ocean.
So will she be getting a ticket for littering?
They should give it back to her – something worth hanging on to.