He found a bottle buried in the Bahamas—what he discovered inside had been waiting since 1971

A man walking along a beach in the Bahamas made a discovery that would connect two lives across half a century. Inside a sun-faded bottle buried in the sand was a note written in 1971 and launched from the coast of New Jersey.

According to News 12 New Jersey, the message was penned by 18-year-old John Forsyth, a crew member aboard the fishing vessel Miss Belmar. He had tossed the bottle into the Atlantic roughly 90 miles east of Belmar Inlet more than fifty years ago.

An unexpected find on the shore

The discovery took place in March 2025, when singer-songwriter Clint Buffington was exploring a remote beach.

“I looked down and there’s this kind of gap in the bushes and walked through and there was this bottle, clear as day, Dr. Pepper label facing the sky,” Buffington recalled. “I could immediately tell it was old and saw that brown paper inside and just knew.”

Partially buried beneath sand and sea grass, the bottle appeared to have rested undisturbed for decades before Buffington found it.

Tracing the author behind the note

Curious to uncover the story, Buffington shared his find on Instagram.

“The message itself says sent off fishing boat Miss Belmar 90 miles east of Belmar Inlet, and that name there is John Forsyth,” he explained in a video post that soon drew thousands of views.

The story quickly reached Captain Alan Shinn, current owner of the Miss Belmar, who recognized the name. He reached out to John’s sister, Kathy, who still kept her late brother’s handwritten records. Forsyth had passed away three years earlier after a long life working on and around boats.

How the bottle traveled so far

Experts say the bottle’s remarkable journey can be explained by the North Atlantic Gyre—a massive ocean current that loops clockwise through the Atlantic, capable of carrying floating objects from the U.S. East Coast down to the Caribbean and the Bahamas over the course of years or even decades.

For Buffington, who has spent years collecting messages in bottles—more than 140 so far—this find stands out as the oldest one yet.

A journey coming full circle

Buffington plans to return the bottle to Forsyth’s family as a keepsake from a moment long past.

Captain Shinn has offered to fly Buffington and his family to Belmar, New Jersey, at his own expense so they can deliver it in person—bringing the message home after 54 years adrift at sea.