Message in a Bottle

A kiss of good luck before the bottle was sent on its voyage (April 14th, 2023)

The bottle was finally opened on Jun 7, 2025

Porto Santo, Portugal

On April 14, 2023, crew members aboard S/V Denis Sullivan tossed a bottle filled with handwritten messages into the Atlantic Ocean. Two years later, the bottle completed an extraordinary journey, washing ashore on the island of Porto Santo, part of the Madeira Archipelago of Portugal.

The discovery was made by Nicolau (Nico), a longtime sailor and captain of whale-watching catamarans in Madeira. Nico was on vacation when he found the bottle nestled in the golden sand of Porto Santo’s beach.

In a message to our crew, Nico proposed continuing the voyage: adding his own message to the bottle and releasing it once again into the ocean, allowing it to drift onward, perhaps to be found years from now by someone on another distant shore.

From one sailor to another, we couldn’t imagine a better next chapter for this traveling time capsule.