A plastic bottle found on an Isle of Man beach containing messages from school children in Southern Ireland has led to volunteer beach cleaning group Beach Buddies spreading its work to the other side of the Irish Sea.
One of the Beach Buddies’ volunteers has made the remarkable find of “23 messages in a bottle” which travelled from the coast near Drogheda to the Isle of Man in fewer than four days.
The messages were written by children from the same class at a primary school in Cartown, near Drogheda, 30km north of Dublin. The school is now planning to link up with Beach Buddies to clean the beaches in its local area.
The 2 litre plastic bottle was discovered by Beach Buddies volunteer Chris Cale, who runs the ‘Up and Running’ sports shop in Douglas. Chris, an accomplished distance runner and race walker, was running early one morning when he made the discovery of the bottle on Gansey beach.
“I always collect some rubbish each time I’m on the beach, but this is the first time I’ve ever found anything like this,” he said.
“There were 23 individual letters written by the school children, and each one was dated. You can see from the content of the letters that the children were really excited to be conducting an experiment on how far rubbish travels in the ocean.
“I was absolutely amazed when I opened it to find so many letters inside and that they were so interested in how litter ends up on beaches. And the messages are just brilliant - lots of the children gave information about their families, their pets and favourite foods, sports and hobbies. It was just brilliant to sit down and read them all.”
The school, called Scoil Naisiunta Muire Gan Smal, is in Cartown, a countryside village near the coast just north of Drogheda in Co. Louth. The children in two classes at the Catholic co-educational school now want to get involved with Beach Buddies and take on beach cleaning in their area as part of their environmental studies.
A spokesman for the school said, “We were very interested to hear about your Beach Buddies. As we, too, live near the beach, we would love to hear more about the work that you do.”
Beach Buddies founder Bill Dale added, “This is a really wonderful surprise. I have found a message in a bottle twice before, but nothing on this scale, and it was amazing to see that it took under four days to get to our beaches the 60 plus miles from Ireland.
“What’s even better is that the school is keen to get involved with Beach Buddies. We never thought of expanding our operation outside of the Isle of Man, but the response from this school is so positive that we will definitely be giving them as much assistance as possible to start a branch of Beach Buddies in Ireland.
“I’m hoping to travel to school to meet the children and teachers some time in the new year. If I can pass on any of my experience gained in the last six years of cleaning beaches in the Isle of Man, and they were to then start cleaning their beaches regularly, then that would be just fantastic.
“Who knows where it might lead? It would be just amazing if the Beach Buddies’ message could be spread across Ireland.”
He added that Beach Buddies is still searching for four more bottles of messages which were thrown into the sea by the Irish school children. A total of 52 letters were written, but so far only one bottle has been found.
“There are four more out there somewhere and the odds are they are lying on a Manx beach waiting to be discovered. We will be sending a message to every child who wrote a letter, and it would be wonderful to find the other bottles so that the children will all receive a reply to their unique messages.”
Anyone finding the messages in a bottle is asked to contact Bill Dale at Beach Buddies on 496560 or beachbuddies@manx.net.
Photo - Beach Buddies volunteer Chris Cale with the messages in a bottle sent from Ireland.
