Returned to sender

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0:39How far would you go to meet someone you've never met? I'm Clint Buffington, and I search the world's shores for messages in bottles, stories that have traveled oceans and decades. My search has sparked many revelations, reminding me that across vast distances, the quest for human connection is timeless. For the BBC World Service, this is Returned to Sender.

1:09I found my first message in a bottle in 2007, so I've been doing this for almost 20 years now. At this point, I've found around 140 of them. This whole bottle thing feels kind of inevitable. As a kid, our family adventures were never just for fun. We were always searching. We come home with rocks, crystals, mushrooms, even old tools. On the beach, we'd compete to find the tiniest shark's tooth, proof of the sharpest eye. So when my dad found a message in a bottle on a Caribbean trip, something clicked. A year later, I found one too. Bright blue glass, orange scroll, and two dollar bills inside.

1:47At that moment, I knew if I could find one, I could find more. Whoa! Oh! Oh! Oh, I love this feeling. I really, really do. This is me on Cockleberry Key in 2023. Even after all these years, finding a bottle still feels as thrilling as the first. Hunting them here is no joke. Cockleberry Key is an unmarked island in the Caribbean. We named it ourselves. Jagged bluffs and hidden sinkholes we call man-eaters. No shade, just blazing sun and whipping trade winds. The place is wild. I was picking through hurricane trash on a hillside when I saw something. And man, I was just coming down out of this pile of trash.

2:34I looked down and I see this frosted bottle. And I had to hold it up to the light to see there is a message in there. You know, next time you send a message in a bottle, maybe don't use a frosted bottle that no one can see inside. It's a little piece of advice from someone who finds them. It's been two years since I found this bottle, and I'm just now opening it. To be clear, I don't encourage sending messages in bottles. I've cleaned many beaches over the years, and I assure you, our oceans definitely don't need them. What I encourage people to do is go look for them. Trust me, there are many to find.

3:09And of course, you'll mostly find trash, like I do. But if you're lucky, once in a while, there will be a story worth saving. These pieces of paper that are in there are folded up pretty skinny. I think there's a chance I can get at least some of them out back through the neck without breaking the bottle or cutting it open. Wow. Oh, that smells weird. That smells so weird. Smells like rum that hasn't seen the light of day in 20 years. First one's coming right out. Holy cow. Okay. That is a really small piece of paper. Ooh, there's definitely writing on this. And it is in Spanish. What does that say?

3:582nd of June, 2010. Wish I read Spanish right now. Okay. Let's see what the next one says. Huh. Okay, maybe that first one I read... wrong. This is again in Spanish, but this one looks like it says 2018. These messages are on strips of paper that are about one and a half inches tall, and then the width of a notebook paper, so eight-ish inches wide. Thank you for something. It's a family name, Z-Y-K-I-O-N-S. Zykeons? Zykeons? So maybe it's just a family trip. Okay, this definitely says 2nd of June 2018. In the end, there were 16 messages folded inside this bottle. Most were in Spanish, with a few in English.

4:54My wife, Kate, who speaks Spanish, helped me translate a few. One of the messages says, Always be positive and never give up, Zykeons. Thank you for being such a gangster family. And another one says, It was fun being with you all. Love you lots. That's when I realized these weren't from a literal family, but from a graduating class calling themselves Zykeons. But which class and where? I need to figure out my next step.

5:25I got lucky with the Zykeons bottle. The messages were in perfect shape, which is rare. Once sealed, a bottle forms its own little ecosystem, and weird stuff can happen. Trapped moisture can weaken the paper, sun fades the ink, and wave action can tear it apart. If water gets in, the message can dissolve or clump into little paper balls like cottage cheese. So getting a message out intact, especially after years at sea, takes patience, the right tools, and a lot of luck. My brother Evan actually found this bottle on a remote Caribbean island back in 2022. He was nervous to open it alone. The paper inside was already crumbling, and he didn't want to risk it.

6:09So he waited until the whole family could be there. Each of us comes with a different set of skills, and honestly, extra hands help when you're trying to unfold something that fragile. Glenn, you're going to have to grab that piece as I come up. You need to put a ruler between there so you can get that thing in there. Oh! Oh, we got writings. Nah. I am from birthday. It's my birthday. Franz? He's from Germany. His name is Franz? From Germany. Is it Franz Pickhauser? It's the 13th of June, but the year's going to be there. Oh, his birthday's 1958. Oh, Clint, right here I can read it really good.

6:51Sailor on ship FGS. Here's his address right here. It's Germany. West Germany. West Germany? Yeah. Does it say West? It says W-Germany. That's definitely old. Clint. So it's P-I-C-K-H. Hello, my name is Franz Pickhardt. This is my official name. All my friends and everybody I know, they call me Dutch. I'm from Wellheim. It's a small town in Bavaria. And the place where I live now is between Ulm and Augsburg, which is in the south of Germany. And I lived there since I left the German Navy. So when I joined the Navy, I was 20 years old and I was a signal man. So it means I did communication with flags and with flashlights.

7:49At this time, the world was still divided in the eastern and the western part. In April of 79, I came on board of the frigate Köln and we were on tour to America. We went over the Atlantic to Bermuda. On our way to Bermuda, I had my birthday. And on the day before, I invited to the signal deck some friends and we drank some beers. And we knew on the next day we would enter the Bernuda Triangle. Everybody made jokes about what could happen. So maybe there's just a sea bestia coming and get the whole ship. Or suddenly before us, it's like a big strudel and the ship goes zoop. So I decided to write a little message who I am.

8:52Where I am, my address in Germany, and I put this sheet of paper in a bottle, closed it and threw it overboard. Two days later, we came to Bermuda and we were still all alive and happy. And nobody thought about the bottle anymore. It was gone.

9:17in the year 2023 it is 44 years later i got a message that the bottle was found i said wow can it be really my message is was found after such a long time even when i told this to friends, they said, wow, it is almost impossible. This bottle was surely circling in the Atlantic, in the Gulf Stream, upwards, downwards. And Clint told me that the lucky thing was that I used the pencil to write, because if I would have used ink, the sunlight would have bleached it out, so nobody could have read it anymore. If you put the paper in the bottle and you close it, you close parts of this special time also.

10:15And so many years later, you open it up and then comes out the spirit of the bottle. It's almost like you're getting a postcard from yourself. I knew this was the day before my birthday. How it smelled. Yes, how it smelled if you are on a boat on the open Atlantic. There is a special smell.

10:41I remember even when I was a boy in Wellheim, there is a small river. And even there, when I was the first time at school and I could write my name, we started to make bottle messages. And I was not the only one who did that. I think it's just a thing of the moment. maybe it's a kind of bringing back just a little bit of this time you remember to your childhood and you have the same expectation that maybe somebody will find your message and will report it to you even if it's after 44 years

11:30So I'm currently on hold with a school in Ponce, Puerto Rico, still chasing down the Zykeons bottle. I know the messages came from a school somewhere in this city. I also learned that graduating classes in Puerto Rico give themselves nicknames, and Zykeons is one that gets reused. So, good news, I'm looking for a graduating class. Bad news, there are lots of Zykeons classes. I've narrowed it down to a few schools and started calling around. I mean, I don't expect them to give out student info to a random guy with a message in a bottle, but it's still worth a try.

12:08And they just hung up on me.

12:13So... These students definitely want to know that their message has been found. It's my responsibility to let them know. I mean, this bottle came to me, and it's my job to let them know. I found this bottle on a very remote beach in the Caribbean full of 16 messages. Whenever I hit this kind of roadblock, I inevitably turn to social media. For all its flaws, it's a place to share a story and see who responds. So if you know anybody who graduated in 2018 from a school somewhere in Ponce, please let me know. I'd love to find them.

12:50And man, it blew up fast. Within days, my posts had hundreds of thousands of views in Puerto Rico. People were sharing it everywhere. Even local celebs got involved. I was swamped. Radio, TV, Telemundo. It felt like half the island was helping me search. But still, no luck. Lots of Zykeon's classes reached out, but just not the right one. I've got a real soft spot for messages like the one from the Zykeons. They're messages sent in moments of joy and celebration. and there's something so honest about that, about that impulse. It reminds me of another favourite bottle I found back in 2019. I can see writing in there and it's in cursive.

13:31It looks like they've got latitude and longitude. Can't see a date though. You're listening to Returned to Sender from the BBC World Service. I've spent the last three decades trying to better understand money across the boardroom, the newsroom and the trading floor. That's longer than most podcast hosts have been alive. But even though I've got questions, join me, Merrin's Upset Web, every week for my show, Merrin Talks Money, from Bloomberg Podcasts, where I have in-depth conversations with fund managers, strategists, and experts about how markets really work. And join me for a separate episode where I answer listener questions on how to make those markets work for you.

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14:19When I got this bottle home to my lab, I couldn't wait to open it. And when I unrolled the message, I saw a page full of tiny script in French. And here's the translation, roughly. 5th of August, 2009, 5.33 a.m. We are 2 ,346 kilometers in the Atlantic. This is the story of three women, three athletic young women, passionate about the ocean. My name is Lucy Robert. I'm living in southwest of France in a town whose name is Cabreton. I am a film director and 15 years ago I have the chance to film a big adventure about the cross of the Atlantic Ocean by three women who are champions of paddleboard.

15:09But I prefer to speak French To say what I really want to say to you The project was with three coastal rescue champions We decided to cross the Atlantic on paddle boards Not the kind you stand on with a paddle But the kind you lie on and propel with your arms Like a surfer One of the women behind the project, Stephanie Barnex, had overcome a serious illness. She wanted to do something bold, something that celebrated life. So she dreamt up this wild adventure with her friends, Alexandra Lux and Flora Messier, all rescue champions. And I was on the support boat filming the journey. We left from a small island in Nova Scotia, Canada Heading to Cap Breton in southwest France They paddled in shifts Switching every two hours Covering 21 hours a day And at night They paused for three hours to rest Then picked up exactly where they left off In total, the journey covered 4 ,830 km matters and took 54 days.

16:31It was the first successful attempt and no one tried it again.

16:40I remember it clearly. August 5th, 2009. We're halfway through the journey. The night before, we shared some wine over dinner, so there was an empty bottle. And early that morning, everyone happened to be awake, even the girls who needed rest. We all ended up on deck, and I said, let's mark this moment, send a message to the sea, to the universe. And someone filled me in that moment. A message in a bottle in the sea. I wrote the date, the time, our position, how far we've travelled and I shared a bit about our story. We hope that someone finds this message one day. Good luck!

17:38At times, I wonder what happened to that bottle. Maybe it smashed on a rock. But really, I kind of moved on.

17:53And then, in January 2022, while I was on bed rest, pregnant with twins and stuck on my sofa, I got an email from Clint. Lucy, I found your message.

18:10I couldn't believe it was real. I thought it was a joke, but Clint sent me a photo of the bottle and the message inside with my handwriting. I never imagined it would happen 12 years later, just days before I was about to give birth to my twins. It felt like magic, like a gift. It was fabulous.

18:34After 54 days and almost 5 ,000 kilometers, the three girls and our team arrived in Cap Breton. Around 8 ,000 people were there to welcome us. There was crying, clapping. It was an unforgettable moment.

18:58When I got Clint's message, I told the three girls right away. Stephanie, she screamed with joy. She was over the moon. Turns out, last year, two of them crossed the Pacific and Stephanie threw another bottle. and he was found by kids on a small island in Asia. So maybe we should ditch emails and all that and just start sending messages by sea instead. I mean, it does work, doesn't it? It works!

19:33Got an interesting call from my dad today. He said he found something startling on his last beachcombing trip in the Caribbean. Apparently it's something I've always wanted to find. It's Thanksgiving and I'm heading to my parents' place to see what this is all about. When I walk up and I see it, I can't tell if it's glass or plastic for sure, but it's a jar. So I go over and I pick it up and it's got something in it. Oh, that's interesting. Couldn't tell if it was blue or black cloth or something. Just a big wad. The entire jar was filled with this thing. I don't know what this is. I have no idea.

20:09There's no such thing as garbage in a jar. I'll put a pair of rubber gloves on. How about that? If there's dirty underwear in it, that's fine. But we're going to take it back to the house. We're going to find out because we'll open it there. So here we go. To me, it looks exactly like a mayonnaise jar. Oh, sand falling out. Oh, oh. Oh, goodness. This dark, dark, almost black piece of cloth bundle. And the bundle has got black string wrapped around it real tight. And you can tell there's something in it. What even is that? Take a pair of scissors and snip a string. Unwrap it. And now I have two bundles in my hand.

20:50Open it up. Oh, my goodness. We have two dolls, all black. A male doll and a female doll with little red smiles on their faces. Oh, okay. That's the lady. Oh, here's the gentleman. Both the heads are filled. Something. Don't know what that is. Yeah, I'm tempted to do a little surgery on them, but... I'm not opening them up. Maybe it was just part of some ceremony or something. I don't know. I'm going, hmm, voodoo dolls. Ooh, what are you going to do with it next? I'm gifting it to you to be the curator for all time. And that way, my house will return to a peaceful village. Well, I did take the jar home with me a bit reluctantly.

21:41I had no idea what kind of spirits I might be introducing into my house. But it turns out maybe it brought in some good luck. Hi! Can you hear me? Yep. Hi. That's Kevin. I'm Alondra, by the way. Yes, and I'm Rosalyn. After the Zykan's bottle went viral, things went quiet for a while. Then, one morning, I woke up to a flood of messages, students claiming they were in the class, their parents, even the teacher. At first, I wasn't sure what to believe. Then someone sent a photo. And there it was, the exact bottle I'd found, caught in the moment they were making it. Incredible. I connected with three of them, Alondra, Kevin, and Rosalind.

22:21The story finally had faces, real people. We all met in sixth grade. We went to the same school, Colegio La Ave Maria, and it's in Ponce, Puerto Rico. At that point, we were in 2018. We were in eighth grade between 14 and 15 of age. It's pronounced Saikyons. I think it meant like light at the end of the tunnel. It was something like that. I can't remember. Two of the most popular names were Saikyons and Hakuna Matata. So our name could have been Hakuna Matata. It was like this close. We just graduated. We're about to go to high school. And so we decided to like get together in a hotel near the beach.

22:59Miss Nieves, she was our main professor, and she was the one that came up with the idea of the bottle. And, you know, us 14-year-olds were like, oh my God, that is the best thing I've heard in my life. Why did I never think of this? Like the movies were going to be famous. I remember writing like, remember, you are a person that is kind and true. And at the end, I put, stay determined. I wrote, no te rindas, después de una tormenta siempre hay un arcoíris, a matar a ti mismo. Don't give up. After the storm, there's always a rainbow. Oh my God, it's kind of cringe. Love yourself, Alondra. And as soon as they went to me, I just didn't have anything.

23:38So I just wrote something quickly and gave it to them. My message was, gracias por estar ahí y acompañarme. Gracias. Thank you all for being there. Thank you. Which I put thank you twice, but I should have wrote something more inspiring. I just felt like, wow, it's going to be like the last time I'm going to see these guys. So I just felt kind of sad that A lot of us were just going our separate ways and starting a new page in life. I was just at work one day and I get a text message saying they found their bottle.

24:15It is crazy how much we have changed. I have grown a lot since then. I've hit puberty. I am now 190 pounds. I am not 110 pounds soaking wet. I am definitely stronger than I was then. I turned 21. I'm on my third year for university. I'm studying to be an English teacher. And I hope that one day with my own students, I'll be able to encapsulate what Mrs. Nieves had done for us, giving us that hope for the future and just having that one last moment. I want to recreate that as a teacher. I'm studying. I'm studying tourism. I am working actually as a tourist guide in Ponce. So come to Ponce. I will give you a tour.