Message in a Bottle

Baltimore Sun:

(Sept. 9) - A Baltimore teen wrote a message, put it in a bottle and threw it into the ocean. Five years later, his missive turned up on the other side of the Atlantic. Daniel Knopp was 14-year-old high school student when he wrote the short note on June 21, 2004. He had been vacationing at the time with his parents aboard a cruise ship departing Freeport in the Bahamas, according to The Baltimore Sun.
"I never thought of it again," Knopp told the Sun. "I completely forgot about that day. I thought it would be unreal if it were ever to be found, but I figured it would be destroyed by the ocean environment."
Little did he know that the old wine bottle would survive the rough waves of the Atlantic and wash ashore 4,000 miles away in Cornwall, southwestern England, five years later.
Tony Hoskings, a retired electrician, was walking his dog along a sandy beach when he spotted the green glass receptacle on July 18.
Although the bottle was a little worse for wear, the letter was very readable, Hoskings told the Sun. He waited until he was in the company of his grandchildren to uncork the bottle and read the message:
"Hello, my name is Daniel Knopp. I am on a cruise ship. I hope whoever reads this finds great joy. God bless. I live in the Baltimore/DC area."
He was touched by the message and made it his mission to find its author.
"It was quite a journey, and if you traveled all those thousands of miles, I think you would want your people to know you had made it safely," Hoskings told the Sun.
Hoskings started scouring the Internet for the sender, but although he found Daniel Knopps, he wasn't sure he had the right one. He approached his local newspaper, and reporters there contacted The Baltimore Sun. Finally, seven weeks after the bottle was found, they zeroed in on the right Knopp.
Now 19, Knopp is a political science major at the University of Maryland and a former intern for the mayor of Baltimore. He confirmed that he was the author of the note that survived at sea for all these years.