Someone wrote that they were keeping a little notebook of the questions that had arisen, so others on the Unschooling Discussion list started naming questions of the day. I wrote this:

Sunday night Holly and I were in the hot tub and she asked me (out of the blue, it seemed) whether people actually really ever put messages in bottles. I said I thought so, and that there are streams and flows in oceans, so they might know where they were likely to end up. But I said I thought also people had done it just for fun, like letting a balloon go up with your name and address fastened to it (she knows a story about that from Ripley's Believe It or Not).

Tuesday morning, I was looking for a rhyming dictionary link, and found this: http://www.poetry.com/timeless/default.asp

It's not an answer to the question, but it's a heck of a good coincidence. They're selling pretty bottles with poems on pretty paper, mailed to where you order.

Sandra

Message in a bottle: Don't litter
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/02/06/message.bottle.ap/index.html
In case the article isn't there later, here's the best part:

The plastic bottle was one of five that Bennett placed in the ocean off New York's Long Island in August.

Last month, he excitedly opened a letter from England, and was stunned by the reply:

"I recently found your bottle while taking a scenic walk on the beach by Poole Harbour. While you may consider this some profound experiment on the path and speed" of "oceanic currents, I have another name for it, litter.

"You Americans don't seem to be happy unless you are mucking about somewhere," says the letter, signed by Henry Biggelsworth of Bournemouth, in the southern county of Dorset.

some history of the idea: MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE by Nigel Sadler, Museum Director

A story with photos: http://www.physical.com/message/

"As it turns out, one of these messages washed up on the shore of a tiny island (Great Blasket Island) off the coast of Ireland. It was discovered on New Years day of 1999. The only identification that had been included on the letters was an email address. Since the finder of the message (Sue Redicon) had neither email nor electricity, it took a while before word finally reached me that the message had been found. . . .

Movie:
I'm assuming you've told Holly about the movie "message in a bottle"?
Here's the link if not: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0139462/
Official Movie Site

Betsy Hill wrote: "Do you suppose she had been humming a Sting song under her breath?" ( lyrics to the song)

Message in a Bottle Server: Index
Plastic and glass message bottles
Suggestion made for using them for party invitations