Message in a bottle travels from Michigan to Florida in 24 years

July 18 (UPI) -- A man relaxing in the water on the Florida coast discovered a message in a bottle that had been thrown into Lake Michigan 24 years earlier.

Gary Henrickson said he was enjoying the gulf coast water in Santa Rosa Beach when he spotted a bottle bobbing in the water nearby.

Henrickson uncorked the mystery bottle and discovered it contained a message from a man who had tossed it into Lake Michigan in 1995

"The note says: Hello, June 16, 1995, Frankfurt, Michigan. I've tossed this bottle into the water to bring joy to anyone who finds it. This whiskey bottle was full a few short hours earlier. If you find this call me, and I'll buy you a drink," Henrickson told WTHR-TV.

Henrickson said he attempted to send a text message to the number on the note, and to his surprise, it will still in service and still belonged to the author of the note.

"He's 49 year's old now," Henrickson said. "It was a whole different time in his life, he said. He threw it in Lake Michigan, and we kind of talked about how it could've gotten down here. It's just an amazing, long, long way it had to go."

He said the two men discussed the possibilities and determined the bottle must have traveled all the way down the Mississippi River.