A couple in Ireland recently found a message in a bottle three years after a Maryland boy tossed it into the Atlantic Ocean.
In 2019, Sasha Yonyak and his beloved neighbor Mr. Wayne decided to send the message.
“We went one mile offshore, off Ocean City, Maryland, and we threw it in, and it just started sailing,” Sasha said.
Three years later, the bottle caught the eyes of a couple taking a walk on a beach in Ireland.
We've got the news you need to know to start your day. Sign up for the First & 4Most morning newsletter — delivered to your inbox daily. >Sign up here.
“We knew, anyway, we had a message in a bottle, so we got really excited,” Ciaran Marron said.
Marron and Rita Simmonds read about Sasha’s hobbies and his hometown in the note.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” Marron said. “It’s something you sort of dream of as a kid, you know, to find this bottle and take you on some magical trip.”
Local
Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia local news, events and information
They tracked Sasha’s dad down on Facebook.
“It was so cool to hear that the bottle made it all the way to Ireland,” Vlad Yonyak said.
“It’s just meant to be, about Sasha,” Simmonds said. “The universe has just brought us together.”
Mr. Wayne died last year, never finding out what became of their bottle.
“That bottle just reflects happy life and happy times that they had together,” Vlad Yonyak said.
Sasha, now 14, plans to stay in touch with Marron and Simmonds and hopes to meet them in person someday.
