MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE PEN FRIENDS MEET AFTER 20 YEARS

Despite the modern communication technologies, Hristo and Violeta Hristovi from the Bulgaria Black Sea coastal city of Varna made friends with a family from the Australian city of Perth in a very romantic manner – through a message in a bottle. The correspondence between them has been going on for 21 years. At the beginning of May, Valda and Frank Pitman from Australia will arrive in Varna to meet their Bulgarian friends for the first time.

The relation started 21 years ago, when the Bulgarian ship captain Hristo Hristov travelled the oceans on a merchant vessel. During one of his long journeys from Singapore to Brazil, captain Hristov tossed almost 60 messages in bottles. He wrote the notes on pieces of old nautical charts.

Released in the sea off the south coasts of Africa, approximately two years later one of the bottles reached the Australian port of Perth. Engineer Frank Pitman discovered it one morning while jogging along the beach. Four days later his wife Valda sent an answer to Varna. The two families have become steady pen friends ever since.

In the recent years the two families have kept in touch by e-mails rather than postal letters. Although they are thousands of kilometers away, the two families know everything about each other. They regularly send greetings for children and grandchildren’s birthdays.

In May the message in the bottle will get the families together for the first time.