NORFOLK, Va. — Phoebe Eggar loves the ocean so much, she decided to make a career out of it.
At Blue Water Divers Bermuda, Eggar is a dive instructor. She spends each day at work diving into the ocean with coworkers and several people who sign up for the classes.
But one Wednesday in July while out for a normal dive, Eggar stumbled upon a mysterious object floating in the water.
“To my right, I see something floating on the surface. I thought it was like a beer can or a Coke can,” she said.
But to her surprise, it was neither. Instead, she found a clear bottle with a message inside of it.
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Eggar smiled, “When I first grabbed it, I thought, ‘I hope this is a treasure map!’”
However, when she opened the bottle, she didn't find a map with an “X-marks the spot.” Instead, she found a message inside the bottle, with one clue: the bottle originated in Norfolk.
“I held it in front of my face and I said, 'Oh my God, it's a message in a bottle,'” Eggar recalled.
In addition to the location, the message stated that it was part of a Marine Water Currents Project with a date from two years ago in 2022.
Eggar noted, “It was crazy to see that it had come so far.”
The message asks the finder to send an email to the address on the page, and then to launch the bottle back into the ocean so the next person can find the bottle and repeat the process.
However, days after Eggar emailed the address, she still has not received a response. Regardless of getting an answer or not, Eggar and her coworkers plan on launching a bottle back into the water soon, once they see the currents are right.
“We're gonna send it on its way with a pic of us and a sticker from our company,” she said.
Eggar explained that if this whole experience taught her one thing, it's to always look out for trash in the water because you never know what mystery or bottle you might come across.
“Pick up trash when you find it in the ocean," Eggar said. "You never know… it could be a message in a bottle.”
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