N.C. student's message in a bottle travels 4,000 miles to Morocco

Aug. 6 (UPI) -- A North Carolina girl's message in a bottle traveled more than 4,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean and was plucked out of the water by a fisherman in Morocco.

Vivian Byerly, then a third grader in Susan Ferguson's Greensboro Day School class, wrote the message in April 2019 as part of a class assignment.

Byerly and her classmates each wrote their own messages in bottles and they included their teacher's email address and the school's address.

The bottles were thrown into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Morehead City in May 2019 by Tyler Richardson, whose son, Brant, is in Byerly's class.

One of the bottles was found by a fishing boat not long after entering the water, but there was no word from any of the others until Sunday, when Ferguson received an email.

The email, from a Moroccan fisherman, said Byerly's bottle had been found on White Beach near Guelmim, Morocco.

The message included photos of the bottle and the fisherman who found it, along with his nephew, who translated the message for his uncle.

Ferguson said Byerly was able to reply to the fisherman's email and has received further responses with information about the discovery.