North Carolina graduate's message in a bottle reaches Portugal

Dec. 22 (UPI) -- A message in a bottle dropped into the ocean by a North Carolina high school graduate in 2020 has been found on a beach in Portugal more than two years later.

Charles Temple, an English teacher at the Ocracoke School in Hyde County, said he has made it a tradition for the past five years to take the school's tiny graduating class for a summer boat trip and have them toss messages in bottles into the Gulf Stream.

The messages consist of handwritten notes on the seniors' graduation programs.

Temple said he never received word of any of the bottles ever being found, until Elena Bretan tagged the school on Facebook in a post saying she had found a message in a bottle Saturday on a beach in Setubal, Portugal -- more than 3,600 miles away.

Bretan included a photo of the graduation program, which featured pictures of the eight students in the 2020 graduating class and a note saying it had entered the ocean on July 26, 2020.

"How cool is this?!!" Ocracoke School wrote in sharing the post on Facebook.

Temple said the discovered bottle belonged to graduate Alan Doshier, whose father, Ernest Doshier, captains the charter boat he uses for his yearly trips with seniors. The teacher said Alan Doshier most likely does not yet know his bottle was found, as he is currently working on a fishing boat in the Bahamas.