Just A Bit Late!

Skipper finds bottle with message nearly a century old

A Scottish skipper has hauled in what could be his most unusual catch - a bottle containing a message written 98 years ago.
Andrew Leaper was pulling in his nets when the bottle appeared.
To his amazement, he discovered on opening it that it contained a message asking the finder to record the date and location of where it was found and return it to director of the Scotland Fishery Board to collect a sixpence reward, Britain's Daily Mail newspaper reported.
Further investigation revealed that the bottle - 646B - had been set adrift as part of 1,890 by Captain CH Brown of the Glasgow School of Navigation.
It was designed to sink and float close to the seabed to monitor currents.
Only 315 of the bottles have ever been found.
Mr Leaper said: "As we hauled in the nets I spotted the bottle neck sticking out and I quickly grabbed it before it fell back in the sea. I couldn't wait to open it.
"It was an amazing coincidence that the same Shetland fishing boat that found the previous record-breaking bottle six years ago also found this one.
Dr Bill Turrell, Head of Marine Ecosystems with Marine Scotland Science told the Daily Mail: "Drift bottles gave oceanographers at the start of the last century important information that allowed them to create pictures of the patterns of water circulation in the seas around Scotland."
Mr Leaper now qualifies for a finder's fee after plucking the bottle from the ocean - one sixpence.