Woman's message travels 3,700 miles

MATTAPOISETT, Mass. (WPRI) -- A Mattapoisett woman has an amazing story to share, after her message in a bottle was found -- half a world away, on the other side of the Atlantic. In fact, it happened twice over.

During the summer of 2010, Mary Lou Manley went sailing off the coast of Bermuda. She put messages in two sealed rum bottles in memory of her longtime partner, Ken McKenzie, who had recently died from cancer, and tossed them off a boat. She never figured they'd be found, but they were.

It just took some time. The first bottle was found in Scotland a while back.

Then, in August of this year, one of the bottles turned up on the beach of a tiny village in Norway -- Holkestad -- and Anne-Mette Bredal found it, while on vacation.

The bottle had traveled some 3,700 miles.

"I hoped that one of them would be found, but I never in my wildest dreams thought they would both make landfall and they would be found," Manley told Eyewitness News.

Inside were several strips of paper, rolled up. "IF YOU FIND THIS, BRING IT TO YESTERDAY'S RESTAURANT/ALEHOUSE IN NEWPORT, RI AND TOAST KEN MCKENZIE, A WONDERFUL FRIEND AND SAILOR," read one of the strips of paper, dated June 4, 2010. Others inside saluted Ken's memory, signed by friends.

One strip of paper included Manley's email address. When an email from Norway showed up in her mailbox, Manley's heart raced: "I calmed myself down a little bit, but as soon as I opened it up and read the woman's words -- I knew it was the real deal."

That led to more emails back and forth, and now the women have forged an exciting friendship across the sea.

While she still misses McKenzie more than anything, Manley says she's been invigorated by the experience. "It's an amazing feeling -- the odds of something like this happening are just incredible," she said.

Manley now hopes to fly overseas next summer to meet her new friends -- and walk Drimsdale Beach in Holkestad, where the bottle was found.