Good NewsP.E.I. man tosses 4,800 messages in bottles into ocean, receives 3,100 responses
In May, 1996, Harold Hackett wrote a message, stuffed it into a bottle, and tossed the vessel into the Atlantic Ocean.
Since then, he's tossed 4,800 message-packed juice bottles off the coast of Prince Edward Island, each marked with the date of the launch and a request for a snail-mail response from the eventual recipient of the bottle.
To date, Hackett has received about 3,100 replies from all over the world, many of them taking years to return to him at his home in the small fishing village Tignish.
He says he's heard from strangers in "Africa, Russia, Holland, different parts of the England, France, Scotland, all different parts of Ireland, British Isles, different parts of South America, from Rhode Island, I got from Maine, Boston, Orlando, Florida, New Hampshire, all different parts of Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Madeleine Islands, and even some here in P.E.I."
Click here to watch him tell his story to the BBC News.
He insists that he'll continue putting messages in bottles "until I shut my eyes for goo. I'm gonna go as long as I can." Depending on the weather, he releases up to 200 bottles a week.
In the meantime, "Harold the bottle man" has developed many pen-pal relationships from his bottle-tossing. He says he usually receives 150 Christmas cards a year.
