IF YOU ARE READING THIS MESSAGE then you have found one of the bottles I have been casting into the sea. I don’t know your name or where you live, but I am certain that you are not too far from where I sit at this very moment.
In 1998, I set sail with my wife, son, and dog, aboard our 42-foot sailboat, on a voyage that lasted almost six years. We crossed oceans, weathered storms, and visited far off places where the natives live in huts made of reeds and wear day-glo brassieres as marks of status.
You might think that my voyage was a risky casting-off from the known world — that I tempted the gods and begged my fate — and that my coming-home would have been a most welcome return to the safety of terra cognita. But my experience was exactly the opposite! It has only been since my return in 2004 that I have become stranded and reduced to stuffing these messages into bottles.
I write my messages and cast them into the sea in hopes that someone like you will read one and set yourself to the task of devising a means of rescue. All the information necessary to formulate a sound rescue plan is contained in this journal. Although it will require some effort, all you need do is to read and understand.
You might want to consider acting quickly. You see, though it may not seem like it, time is running out. We are close in upon a lee shore and the swell is building. A single bout with foul weather; an unanticipated veering or backing breeze, will be all it takes to set us upon those reefs.
All hands on deck! Lay the helm hard-over. Come-about. Sheet in! We can beat our way off that lee shore. We need sea room if we’re to get underway again!
Do some study and when you’ve worked out a plan, send up a red flare if by night, or if by day, sound five long blasts of your horn. I am here — closer than you think — waiting, watching, listening, for your signal. You’d best act soon lest you too find yourself stranded and stuffing messages in bottles.
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In my after cruise (AC) awareness it has become clear to me that our the ship I am now aboard —- our nation —- needs correct its course if it is to avoid foundering upon reefs and shoals that are already in sight. Time is running out. We are close in upon a lee shore. A single bout of bad weather will blow us hard aground. The messages in my bottles all say the same thing. We need to come-about, sheet hard, and beat our way of that lee shore before it’s too late.
