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Message in a bottle: NI boy's note found in Menorca 13 years on Message in a bottle: Menorca note riddle solved
(about 17 hours later)
A message in a bottle, thrown into the sea off the coast of Northern Ireland 13 years ago, has been found off an island in the Mediterranean Sea. A message in a bottle that travelled from Northern Ireland to the Mediterranean arrived by air, not sea.
The message was written by Adam Burke when he was seven years old and was cast into the Irish Sea at Bangor, on the coast of County Down. The note from Bangor, County Down, did not make the freak journey of 2,000 nautical miles to the coast of Menorca as first thought.
It was the last Adam saw of the bottle, until photos appeared on social media this week, appealing for information. A schoolboy from Northern Ireland, Adam Burke, threw the bottle in the water on Monday while on holiday in Menorca.
The bottle was found on Tuesday on the the Balearic island of Menorca. On Thursday a different Adam Burke said he thought it was one he had thrown into the sea at Bangor 13 years ago.
'Amazing survival' So why was there the confusion?
Adam, who is now 20 years old, has spoken of his surprise that his childhood message had turned up more than a decade later on a foreign shore. It all stems from the Bangor connection.
The Belfast student said he threw the bottle into the water during a trip to the seaside town with his grandparents. The note that Spaniard Albert Voltas found on Tuesday in a bottle off the coast near the town of Ciutadella said: "Hello from Bangor N.I. from Adam Burke age 7."
The Spanish man who found the bottle earlier this week posted photographs on his Facebook account, asking about the boy who wrote the message. The Spanish holidaymaker put out a global social media message to try to track down the Adam Burke in question.
Albert Voltas, who is from Barcelona, told the BBC he is on holiday in Menorca and made the discovery while kayaking off the island. After the message was shared thousands of times, Adam Burke, 20, from County Tyrone, thought it was his bottle. He remembered throwing a message in a bottle into the sea in Bangor 13 years ago when on a day trip with his grandparents.
The exact route that the bottle took is not known, but it ended up at least 2,000 nautical miles away from its starting point in Bangor. He contacted the media and did a number of interviews.
Speaking to BBC Newsline in Belfast on Thursday, Mr Burke said: "It's amazing that it has survived." When the family of another Adam Burke saw the media coverage, they realised it was actually their bottle. It had not been in the sea for 13 years - but only 24 hours.
"It's incredible that people actually went to the effort of sharing it and linking it to people, that it's made it the whole way back to me. This particular Adam Burke is seven years of age, and lives in Portadown.
"So it's sort of a really good story about people and the efforts people go to for something so simple." So why does the note in the bottle say 'Hello from Bangor'?
His father, Gregory, takes up the story: "Adam and his friends Alex, Evan and Lewis were at a maritime festival in Bangor last month and made the bottles.
"When he got home, Adam realised he'd forgotten to throw his bottle in the water.
"We live in Portadown, nowhere near the sea, so we decided to wait until we went on holiday to Menorca. He threw it in the sea on Monday.
"It's definitely Adam's bottle. I got him to write out the note again just to check it was the same handwriting!"
As for the other Adam Burke, he is disappointed and accepts it is not his bottle.
He said: "It's just been a genuine coincidence. A lot of people threw bottles in the sea when they were younger, particularly in Bangor.
"It turns out the one in Menorca wasn't mine after all."
The bad news for Albert Voltas is that the washed-up bottle he thought had travelled 2,000 miles in the sea probably only travelled a mere 200 metres.
Yes, it did come all the way from Northern Ireland, but the majority of that journey was in a suitcase in a holiday jet.