Global Connections
Fisherman Pennel Ames has been dropping bottled messages into the sea for six years. Last week, one washed ashore in England. It certainly wasn't the first time.
Two weeks ago, John Nesbitt of the Bournemouth Daily Echo, in Bournemouth, England, was walking the beach with his camera at Purbeck when he came across a barnacle-encrusted wine bottled with a message inside. That message was from Nantucket's own Pennel Ames, and it had traveled over 3,000 miles from the time when Pennel had tossed the bottle into the ocean while fishing off the Nantucket coast in August 2005. It was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence for Nesbitt, whose newspaper published a story about the find. But it wasn't nearly a first for Pennel, who has a scrapbook of responses he and his family have received after throwing almost 500 bottles into the sea since 2000.

People have responded from as close as the Cape and Islands and as far away as the Hebrides off the Scottish coast, County Mayo in Ireland, Wales, Jamaica, Southern Portugal, the Canary Islands, Nova Scotia, Bermuda, Cuba and Grenada. Letters have come back to them with travel guide pages, brochures and maps of the bottles' final rest- ing places.

"It gives you a glimpse inside somebody else's life that you wouldn't normally get," Pennel said.

Pennel Ames, center, and his daughters, Kelsea (left), 14, and Amelia, 12, with a rack used to dry wine bottles. Occasionally, the girls will compose t he messages their dad has been placing into wine bottles and dropping into the ocean for the past six years. ROB BENCHLEY The Independent

The whole thing started on a fishing trip in 2000, when one of Pennel's fishing buddies reminisced about tossing bottled messages overboard from the ferry during a long-ago class trip. The guys tossed a few bottled messages overboard for fun. After that trip, Pennel decided to try a few more, writing a short note and using old wine bottles from around the house. He re-corked them and secured the tops with electrical tape.

His family helping prep the bottles, Pennel began sending out messages on every fishing trip. In 2003, he installed a three-bay outdoor sink in his scallop shanty, bought a hand corker and artificial corks, and realized that he had the makings of a more productive pastime. The Ames family streamlined the letters and learned to clean the bottles in a bleach-and-water solution. Pennel discovered that he could find empty bottles neatly discarded in bulk outside of the restaurants on Straight Wharf. The girls even began writing some of the letters by hand in the hope that senders would be more likely to respond.

"It's like a little assembly line the night before he leaves for a fishing trip," said Pennel's wife, Sharon. "One family member will type up a note, careful to include the date. Another will take the letters and roll them up tight, making certain the writing can be seen on the outside. Then, someone puts the letters into bottles."

The messages are dated and generally read: "Hello, This bottle was thrown from a fishing boat about 30 miles east of Nantucket Island. Please let me know where and when you find it." They also include the Ameses' mailing address.

The family asks finders to write back via air mail, not e-mail, because they hardly check their email and because computer print-outs don't make for a very interesting scrap book.

"I want the letter, I don't want an e-mail. I don't want second best. I want a letter to put in the book," Pennel said.

Sometimes, the finders don't understand English, but a few have sought out translators to help them decipher the note and then respond. An 8- year-old British girl on vacation in the Canary Islands responded to one of Kelsey Ames' letters when a Spanish woman and little girl, unable to read the message, brought the bottle to her family. "I would like for you to write me in England and I will write you in Nantucket," the little girl wrote. "I have never found a nice message before." The Ames girls have also used their Spanish teachers in the past to help them translate and respond to messages.

A good number of bottles have washed ashore at Great Point, where trustee Ray Eger now keeps a collection on his shelf, much to Pennel's goodhearted dismay. "I wish he'd throw them back into the ocean!" Pennel said.

The bottles that wash ashore on island do so "faster than if you had tried to send the letter in the mail," said Sharon, who added that a couple who found a bottle on Nantucket while on vacation several years ago framed their message and posted it on the wall in their New York home. They send the Ameses a Christmas card every year.

The most remarkable response the Ameses ever received came from New Orleans.

"Louisiana is the trophy bottle," Pennel said. "They wrote the longest letter. The bottle spent the longest at sea. And it was just a great story."

"We still look at the map and wonder how a bottle ever made it to New Orleans," Sharon said.

ANew Orleans man found the bottle while spear fishing, and brought it back to his fiancée. The Cajun couple made "Message in a Bottle" the theme of their wedding, and even invited the Ameses to attend. After Hurricane Katrina forced them to relocate, Sharon tracked them down in Texas, where the wife had been transferred for medical school after Tulane University was closed. Coincidentally, the closing of the university caused one of the woman's professors to relocate to Nantucket, where his daughters began attending school with the Ames' two girls.

"These bottles keep reminding us of how small the world can be and how Nantucket is really a global place," said Sharon, who added that the New Orleans couple is planning to visit the Ameses on island this summer.

The number of bottles the Ameses send out depends on the fishing season. "If the fish are not there to be caught, then the bottles will not be thrown into the ocean," Sharon said. "Each summer, we can send out as few as 25 bottles or as many as 75."

Currently, the Ameses are averaging about one global response for every 50 they send out. There's no way of knowing if bottles they sent out two years ago or three years ago or even last summer are afloat somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic, destined for an unusual port. And the magic of not knowing is part of the appeal. There's something wholly wonderful, optimistic and even generous about the Ames' pastime. What the Ameses create for Pennel to toss off a boat is more than a piece of paper in a bottle - it's the opportunity for someone to find it and feel special and to believe that the ocean can still

produce unexpected treasures. I