They find a message in a bottle and get a surprise after writing to the phone of the note: “Definitely did not expect that to happen”

On Anna Maria Island, a barrier island off Florida’s west coast, the ocean delivered a secret that had been floating for years. Eleven-year-old Josie Law never imagined that a walk along the shore would turn into a connection with someone’s past, thousands of miles away.

“I thought it was a piece of trash, and then I saw the note in a bottle and I was like, ‘It’s a note in a bottle.’ ” Josie told local outlet Tampa Bay 10.

Curious, she ran to show her mother, Paris Hoisington. Carefully opening the bottle, they discovered a piece of paper dated August 17, 2018, with an intriguing message: “Hello, people who found this. You will be happy that you found this. Why? Because you will know me with this number” the note read.

Instead of calling the number, Paris chose to send a text message. Shortly afterward, they received a reply that left them speechless: the note had been written by a 21-year-old woman who now lives in Hawaii. At the time, she was just 13, and her brother was 8, according to People magazine. They had tossed the bottle into the sea as part of a childhood experiment, never imagining that someone would find it seven years later on the other side of the continent.

“It was super fun to see that our bottle ended up all the way in Florida and that they ended up reaching out to us. Definitely did not expect that to happen,” said the author of the message in the same publication.

How can a bottle travel around the world?

It may sound far-fetched, but it’s scientifically possible. According to chief meteorologist Bobby Deskins, for the bottle to reach Florida from Hawaii, it would have had to navigate a complex system of ocean currents: first traveling north in the Pacific, then toward North America, passing near Asia and South America, skimming Africa, crossing the Atlantic, and finally arriving in the Caribbean before reaching Florida.

A magical, globe-trotting journey straight out of a storybook—but one with environmental implications. “We do not want to encourage others to do this because it is littering and illegal! We did not know this at the time, as we were young kids and copying something that someone else had done before us,” said the Hawaiian woman, who preferred to remain anonymous.

And that impact is enormous. According to Greenpeace, 8 million tons of waste enter the oceans every year—the equivalent of 800 Eiffel Towers. That figure aligns with the European Parliament’s estimate that more than 150 million tons of plastic currently float in marine environments. So, as heartwarming as this story may seem, environmental awareness is more important than ever—especially when there are millions of other ways to connect.

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