A young boy’s adventurous spirit led to an incredible discovery when a message in a bottle he tossed into the Bahamian waters was found on a beach in Portugal exactly one year later.
Amy Bisterzo and her 10-year-old son, Lorenzo, reside in the charming town of Fort Old Bay in the Bahamas. On February 10th of last year, they embarked on a delightful experiment. “We were thrilled with the idea of the bottle’s journey and where it might end up,” Bisterzo shared. “However, as time went on, we completely forgot about it.”
While it was a thrilling activity for them, Bisterzo admitted that as an adult, she understood the odds of the bottle being discovered were slim. Lorenzo carefully penned their WhatsApp numbers, their town’s name, and the date before the duo took off on a jet ski, casting the bottle into the shimmering ocean.
Little did they know, their creation would travel over 4,000 miles, journeying from Nassau in the Bahamas to Vila Chã Beach, near Porto in Portugal.
On February 12th, 2026, 49-year-old schoolteacher Maria Enes was out walking her dog when she spotted the bottle nestled among some sticks. She described the experience of finding a message in a bottle as a “childhood fantasy.”
Upon noticing the date 2025 on the bottle, Enes assumed it was local and took it home. Using tweezers to carefully remove the note, she was astonished to discover it came all the way from the Bahamas—exactly one year later. “I thought it was amazing, so I called the number listed in the note,” Enes recalled.
Meanwhile, back in Fort Old Bay, Bisterzo was preparing for bed when she received a call from an unfamiliar number in Portugal. “A strange photo appeared on my phone with someone saying, ‘I got your bottle,’” she recounted excitedly.
When Amy recognized Lorenzo’s handwriting in the photo, she quickly unblocked the number. “I shouted upstairs to Lorenzo, ‘Someone found our bottle!’ He didn’t remember it since so much time had passed, but when I showed him, we were both ecstatic. Then I began communicating with Maria, who sent us voice notes and videos. I quickly realized how kind and wonderful she was,” Bisterzo shared.
“I never imagined it would be found, especially not almost to the exact year, and to travel such a distance only to be discovered by the perfect person,” she added.
Maria expressed her hopes of meeting Amy and Lorenzo in Vila Chã one day, so they could create another bottle together and send it off into the ocean.
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