A lucky guy spotted a message in bottle between sea grass and sand, in the Bahamas. An ordinary walk along the beach became a rare bridge between generations: John Forsyth, 18 years old and working aboard the fishing vessel Miss Belmar off the coast of New Jersey, wrote a message inside in 1971, according to News 12 New Jersey. Unaware that it would reach the shore more than 50 years later, Forsyth sent the note out approximately 90 miles east of Belmar Inlet.
Clint Buffington, singer-songwriter and the finder, immediately recognized the age because the bottle had a browned slip of paper inside and a vintage Dr Pepper label. What happened transformed a fortunate excursion experience into a plan for Captain Alan Shinn’s homecoming.
Experts believe the trajectory of the bottle point to the North Atlantic and its North Atlantic Gyre, a strong ocean current capable of carrying floating objects for years at a time.
The message inside the bottle
Buffington saw the bottle in March 2025 while walking in the Bahamas coastline. “I looked down and there’s this kind of gap in the bushes and walked through and there was this bottle, clear as day, Dr. Pepper label facing the sky,” Buffington recalled the moment of recognition: “I could immediately tell it was old and saw that brown paper inside and just knew.” The bottle appeared to have been partially buried under sea grass and sand for decades.
Buffington posted his discovery on Instagram, curious to find the author. “The message itself says sent off fishing boat Miss Belmar 90 miles east of Belmar Inlet, and that name there is John Forsyth,” he said in a video, revealing the contents of the note. Captain Alan Shinn, the current owner of the Miss Belmar, saw the post, which received thousands of views. After recognizing the name, Shinn got in touch with Kathy,Forsyth’s sister, who had preserved her late brother’s handwritten documents.
According to the family, Forsyth died three years before and worked around boats for a long time. Unbroken, the bottle preserved a tiny piece of his early years.
People, places, and the path across the sea
Launched from waters off New Jersey close to Belmar Inlet, the note’s origin and destination in the Bahamas follow a probable arc formed by the North Atlantic Gyre. According to experts, over the course of years or decades, this clockwise system can move floating objects from the East Coast of the United States toward the Caribbean.
Although the precise path is still unknown, that explanation accounts for the bottle’s lengthy drift across the North Atlantic. For Buffington, who has spent years finding messages in bottles—more than 140 so far—this one stands apart as his oldest. The worn Dr Pepper label, which caught his attention, turned out to be a clue that the ship had been on the road for a while.
It’s a moving story. A young fisherman leaves a note on the deck of the Miss Belmar in 1971. Decades later, a beachcomber finds it and says the name it bears. Captain Alan Shinn recognizes that name and gets in touch with a family whose memories have been preserved.
Bringing it home
Buffington intends to give the bottle back to Forsyth’s relatives as a memento of a bygone era. After 54 years at sea, Captain Alan Shinn has volunteered to fly Buffington and his family to Belmar, New Jersey, so they can personally deliver the message to him.
How many of us haven’t dreamed about finding a message form the past? This kind of story stays alive because it is personal and real. It’s a reminder that the human footprint is not always erased by the ocean’s size.