Sir, So, Alesha Johnson threw a message in a bottle into Morecambe Bay and it turned up in Australia six months later (report, Jan 19). This means it travelled fifty miles a day, or two miles an hour, taking the shortest route. It was probably picked up by a sailor in Liverpool and thrown overboard near Perth.
BILL OXLEY
Warrington, Cheshire
Sir, Ships require water to stabilise. The bottle could easily have been pumped into a ship in Europe and ejected off Australia before loading.
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JONATHAN GARDNER
Cranbrook, Kent
Sir, As a student visiting home from Canada I found a message in a bottle in North Wales which I took back to Saskatchewan with me. I regret to say that I pretended to have found the bottle in the North Saskatchewan River, near Saskatoon.
I have been haunted ever since by a picture sent to me of the front page of the Banffshire Herald, depicting an excited young lad holding my letter with the caption: “Is this a record?”
DR J. ANDREW STORRAR
Chester