A Message in a Bottle from Nova Scotia

In August, walking on a beach in Maine with my kids, my son spotted a green glass bottle half buried in seaweed. There was a rolled-up piece of paper inside.

We sat on a rock and worked the cork out with a pocketknife. The note was written in pencil in a child's handwriting. "Hi! My name is Ella. I am 9. I live in Nova Scotia. I threw this off my grandpa's boat. If you find it, please write back!" There was an email address at the bottom, her mother's.

My son wrote back that night. Ella's mother replied the next morning, stunned. Ella had thrown the bottle three years earlier, and it had traveled about three hundred miles.

Now Ella and my son are pen pals. They've sent each other drawings, shells, a jar of beach sand and a postcard of a lighthouse. They're planning to meet next summer. My son has already picked out a bottle to throw back.