Everyone has a favorite beach activity. For some people it is playing outdoor games, for some, it is water sports, while for some it is simply lying down and relaxing in the sand. However, there are a few people who enjoy a different kind of activity, which is beachcombing. Believe it or not, you can find hundreds of such people any day on any beach looking for treasure. They spend hours rummaging through the golden sand particles hoping to find a precious object.
But sometimes, fate works in mysterious ways. A person who may not be searching for treasure may stumble upon a valuable item, totally unaware of its value. Such was the case of the Illman family, who were out on a stroll at the beach when they came across a remarkable find.
Kym Illman is an Australian Entrepreneur and photographer. He was born in the city of Adelaide, Australia. Married to Tonya Illman with two children, Kim has a perfect little family. Tonya is also a photographer and together they travel the world with their cameras clasped in their hands, searching for their next big adventure.
It was a bright sunny morning in Perth, Australia. Kym and Tonya had decided to surprise their kids by taking them out for a spontaneous outing. Their children are a big fan of the beach so that's where they were headed. Their house was in chaos, everyone busy packing their things and getting ready for the excursion.
Tonya was in the kitchen putting together a picnic basket. The kitchen island was invisible underneath so much food, cut up strawberries, grapes, and other berries, freshly baked baguette, pretzel sticks, club sandwiches and of course, Kym's favorite ham and cheese sandwiches.
Once everything was put together and packed in the car, the Illman family was ready to hit the road! The car radio was playing the latest pop tunes, and the laughter of children filled up the inside of the car. As they covered more distance, the sky-high towers of Perth slowly diminished in the rearview mirror and the tall trees greeted them at the horizon.
Things were going as per the plan when a sudden bump in the road led to an abrupt halt in the journey. Kym got out to inspect and found a flat tire. And as fate will have it, they didn't have a spare tire in the trunk. Tonya took out her phone and called for help.
The mechanic told Tonya that it will take him three hours to reach them. It's a Sunday which means he is extra busy. Or maybe extra lazy, who knows. But that means the family of four had more than three hours to spare and they were definitely not going to sit in the car for that much time.
Kym found on a map that there is a beach nearby about half a mile or so. It is not the one where they were headed but three hours at a random beach sounds better than three hours stuck in a car in the middle of nowhere. So it was decided that they will go and wait at the beach until the mechanic arrives.
They reached the beach faster than they had assumed. The ocean was kissing the skyline for as far as their eyes could go. The sand had a beautiful hue of gold in it. The sun was bright but not hot, the breeze was cool against their faces. This was so much better than waiting in the car for sure.
The family found a spot with an outdoor umbrella and a bench where Kim unloaded their things. The children wanted to go in the water so Kym decided to join them, Tonya, on the other hand, decided to go on a stroll across the beach.
Even though Tonya was a big fan of beaches, she was not a fan of humans on the beach. They ruin everything. And she could see the same outcome for this beach too, it was littered badly. There was nobody taking responsibility for it. She felt strongly about such issues.
Tonya Illman was an environmentalist. She cared for the planet and practiced eco-friendly activities in her everyday life. She taught the same to her children too. So she decided to make this a meaningful trip and went to find her family. It was time to clean this beach up!
Tonya found her family just stepping out of the sea. "Perfect timing", she called out to them. The trio faced her with a confused look. Tonya shared her concern and plan for the remote beach. To her surprise, the children were excited to help!
The family began their little adventure, trying to clean up the beach. All Tonya asked them to do was pick up the items and collect them in a garbage bag, which they will send in to recycle. So the family began to collect items from the beach and putting them in their individual garbage bags.
Tonya was busy collecting items when her eyes landed on a glass bottle half-buried in the sand. She reached in and pulled it out of the ground. It was...beautiful. The shape was so unique and the glass was opaque not see through. It had some kind of inscription on the surface, perhaps German. Tonya grew fond of it in just a few minutes.
Tonya decided to keep the bottle for herself. Maybe she will decorate it on her bookshelf, or her nightstand. She was not sure but she knew she wanted to keep it. So instead of putting it in the garbage bag, she put it aside in her bag. Once that was out of the way, she continued with the cleaning.
Eight bags of garbage down, the Illman family was finishing up with the cleaning. Tonya was immensely proud of everyone. They did such a wonderful job. The mechanic was here when they were busy cleaning, so the car was ready to go as well. Except they were so tired, they decided to take a raincheck on the excursion.
They will plan their little trip for next weekend, but for now, they wanted to head home. So they put everything back in the car and got back on the road. The children fell asleep in the back seats nearly halfway down the road. Once home, they all got in their bed after a long tiring day and fell asleep almost instantly.
Tonya was sitting on the front porch sipping on her second cup of coffee. She was busy reading the newspaper when she recalled the events of yesterday. She totally forgot about the glass bottle she brought home from that beach. She quickly got up to find it.
Tonya took out the bottle from the bag and inspected it. It was beautiful no doubt. It was almost filled halfway with damp sand. But as Tonya slowly scooped out the sand, she noticed something through the dirty opaque glass. There was something inside the bottle. It looked like a thin cylindrical object, like a rolled-up cigarette. Except when she emptied the bottle, she found something entirely different.
A rolled-up piece of paper fell from the inside of the glass bottle. Tonya's eyes went wide, she picked it up hesitantly. It was soggy to touch but wrapped tightly. She didn't know if she should open it. She decided to wait for her husband to get home. He will know what to do.
Kym kept staring at the bottle and the piece of paper over and over. It has been more than half an hour since he got back home. But even he was taken aback at this find. He was beyond curious so he decided they should open it. But it was so soggy they couldn't open it without ripping it apart. That is when Tonya got an idea.
Tonya decided to put the note in the oven and wait for it to be completely dry before they try to open it. She was not sure if it will work, she may just set it on fire. But it was worth a try and quite frankly, their only option. But to her surprise, it totally worked! The note opened easily but what they found inside was confusing, to say the least.
The paper was about 8 by 6 inches in size and had partially printed text and partially handwritten text. Most importantly, the thing the couple noticed almost immediately was that the text was not English, it was German. Just like the writings on the glass bottle.
The good news was that Kym was able to translate some major key points of that German text. The printed text asked the reader of the note to contact the German Consulate when they find the bottle and the note. It also asked the reader to note down the exact date and time when they discovered the bottle before returning it to the German embassy.
So apparently these bottles were flung off from boats for experimental and research purposes. The handwritten text was barely visible, as most of it had faded away. They could read the date the bottle had been thrown from the boat - June 12th, but the year was not visible clearly. Kym believed it said '86.
The last thing Kim could decipher from the note was the name of the ship from which this bottle was thrown. The last few letters of the name read, "A-U-L-A" to which his first guess was the ship, Paula. But there was no way to know it for sure. The couple needed help from some experts who could confirm the same.
Kym and Tonya decided to reach out to the Western Australian Museum's Department of Maritime Archaeology. They believed that the assistant curator of the department, Dr. Ross Anderson would help them in filling in the blanks of the message, it's history and how it ended up at that beach.
When Kym and Tonya presented the message to Dr. Anderson, they didn't expect him to take them seriously at first. But to their surprise, not only did they not have to convince him, but he was very excited to help them find answers. He took the note and put it under observation with a bunch of his team members.
To Kym's surprise, Dr. Anderson confirmed his theory about the ship. The ship's name was, indeed, "Paula". They confirmed the same by finding out records from the year 1883. From that point on, the story behind the message in the bottle began to unravel.
Paula was the name of a sailing ship constructed in Germany. The crew of the ship was a bunch of researchers who studied the ocean currents and conducted experiments by dropping these messages in bottles into the sea. The last message was reported to be found in Denmark in the year 1934, but Tonya was the only one who found the message intact inside the bottle.
Dr. Anderson did some amazing digging and found a journal in the archives. This was Paula's original meteorological journal. This journal kept a record of the research and experiments. It was a rare piece of history. Dr. Anderson found an entry in that journal which stood out in particular.
There was one entry made on June 12th, 1886, mentioning the record of a bottle that was thrown from the ship for an experiment. And according to Dr. Anderson, the coordinates and the date match exactly with the note found in the message inside the bottle. But that was not all.
As per the records, the bottle was thrown off in the south-eastern Indian Ocean. During this time the ship was traveling from Cardiff in Wales to Indonesia. That is how it washed up on the Australian coast within 12 months where it was buried under the sand until Tonya found it.
The handwriting in the journal matched exactly with the handwriting in the note, which confirms the note's validity. The archaeologists could not believe that this bottle was right under their noses chilling on a beach in Western Australia and they never knew until now.
According to the journal, the German researchers conducted those experiments for 69 years. During that period, the researchers flung off thousands of bottles out of which 662 messages were reported back but no bottles. Tonya was one of the rare ones who found the message intact inside the bottle without the bottle being broken or lost.
Despite the validation of the story and the message, the Illman's received their share of criticism and skepticism from a few people. They found it hard to believe that the story was genuine and considering Kym's marketing background, they assumed he just bought the bottle on one of his travels and presented it as something they accidentally discovered.
Kym understood the suspicion of people. The story sounded far fetched to him as well. A bottle half-buried in the sand found with a message from the year 1886 completely intact, he got it. But he made a very strong point, "I can't possibly pull the wool over two German national agencies and the WA Museum". And that is true, both these agencies have validated this story by sharing their own opinion.
To further prove that the story is not fake, Kym had one more pillar of support. The Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency of Germany officially declared the message as genuine. Dr. Anderson pointed out the structure of the bottle, a narrow neck, and thick glass, helped in keeping the message intact.
The bottle was discovered by Tonya after 131 years of it being thrown into the sea. The Guinness World Records named it the "World's oldest message in a bottle". The previous record was held by a 108 years old message in a bottle.
Kym and Tonya were overwhelmed by the turn this journey took. They were just on a casual stroll on the beach and the next thing they know, they have made a world record. Tonya wrote online, "To think that this bottle has not been touched for nearly 132 years and is in perfect condition. I'm still shaking. This has been the most remarkable event in my life".
The Illman's have loaned the bottle and the message to the Western Australian Museum for two years where it will remain up for display to the public. Kym was delighted to loan the find to the museum saying, "It is truly an impressive find and thanks to the wonderful international and interdisciplinary cooperation of science and research, it can now also be shared with the world."