This Teen’s Message In A Bottle Finally Got An Extremely Wholesome Response Nine Years Later
"Logistically, I think I have a higher chance of winning the lottery than this happening."
Every kid has dreamed of putting a message in a bottle, throwing it in the ocean, and getting a letter back.
But for Max Vredenburgh, a 19-year-old college student, this week his dream became reality.
On August 21, 2010, when he was just 10 years old, Max wrote a letter, shoved it in a wine bottle, and threw it into the sea with his father off Long Beach in Rockport, Massachusetts.
On August 21, 2010 I threw a message in a bottle into the ocean from a beach in Rockport, MA. On October 10, 2019 that letter was found on the beach in France. I am mind blown. 9 years. pic.twitter.com/Af2tEwoQtq
— māx (@VredenburghMax) November 8, 2019
Written in lead pencil, the letter detailed a few things about himself and included an address for the recipient to write back to if the bottle was ever found. “I’m 10 years old. I like apples, I like the beach, my favourite colour’s blue, I like animals, I like cars, and I like outer space,” Max wrote. “Please write back.”
While it did take a little while, nine years later Max got a letter back.
According to the letter Max received, the bottle washed up on a beach in France, between Contis and Mimizan, on October 10. Found by one ‘G. Dubois’, the mystery penpal decided to fulfil the now 19-year-olds request.
“It will have taken nine years to cover the 6000km that separates us,” ‘G. Dubois’ wrote. “You had grown a lot during that time: 10 to 19 years old.”
When his parents sent him a photo of the letter, Max was shocked. “Logistically, I think I have a higher chance of winning the lottery than this happening,” he told CBSN Boston.
“I didn’t even think it would make it there and if it did make it there, I didn’t think that somebody would actually write a letter back,” Max shared. “This kind of made me reflect back on who I used to be.”
As all ‘G. Dubois’ left in the letter was an address, Max is still trying to figure out who they could be. “I want to know about him. I want to know if he likes, what his favourite food is, what his favourite colour is. Does he like space?” Max said.
Max tweeted his story over the weekend and it went viral, with over 500,000 people becoming invested in the incredible series of events.
this is the cute and wholesome content that I wish the entire internet was :’)
— deanna (@deannawigz) November 10, 2019
People like him who actually took the time to write back need to be protected.
— Miss Tabitha (@MissTabitha2) November 10, 2019
This is the coolest shit I’ve ever seen on Twitter
— Collette? (@IAmColllettte) November 9, 2019
While others took time to note just how impressive it is that the bottle survived its journey over nine years.
Not only did the bottle 1) go somewhere other than just further along the shore of his beach 2) travel thousands of miles into a populated area 3) was found by someone who realized it had a note and 4) was found by someone in fucking France that speaks English. This is incredible
— David ??? (@davidalopezz) November 10, 2019
I always wanted to do this as a kid but I was scared that the whales might eat the bottle and die lmaooo
— ma (@svgartits) November 10, 2019
My favorite people are the ones that are optimistic enough as children to throw messages in a bottle
— rella (@isxrel) November 10, 2019
Max is looking forward to writing back to ‘G. Dubois’, and hopefully getting a response a little sooner than in another nine years time.