Friendship can be found in the most unlikely places — sometimes it just needs a little current to get things moving.
Amy Bisterzo and her 10-year-old son Lorenzo took a short outing on their jet ski in the Atlantic near their home in Old Fort Bay, Bahamas, and tossed a message in a bottle into the water as fun experiment, according to a report.
The rolled up paper simply contained happy greetings to whoever found it, along with where it came from, the date — Feb. 10, 2025 — and Amy’s WhatsApp number in case the finder wanted to give them a call.
At first, their imaginations were running full steam ahead with possibilities.
“Of course when we first threw it we were so excited to imagine what might become of the bottle and where it would go,” Bisterzo told SWNS, reports Good News Network. “But honestly as time went by we completely forgot about it.”
She thought it was fun, “but in my adult mind I knew it was highly unlikely to be found.”
But she was wrong.
A year later, Bisterzo got a shocking phone call that reeled her right back in.
Turns out the bottle went on a 4,000 voyage before washing ashore 12 months later on Vila Chã Beach in Portugal, and it was shore luck that schoolteacher Maria Enes spotted it while she was walking her dog.
Enes said finding a mysterious bottle in the sand was like a “childhood fantasy,” and took it home.
“I took the paper out with tweezers and I was astonished that it came from the Bahamas, exactly one year had passed,” said Enes, 49.
Enes immediately picked up the phone and punched in Amy’s WhatsApp numbers.
When Bisterzo answered, she was astonished to read the message, “I found your bottle.”
“I shouted upstairs to Lorenzo, ‘Someone found our bottle,’ … it was so long ago he didn’t know what I was talking about and then I showed him,” said Bisterzo. “Then I started to communicate with Maria, and she sent voice notes and videos, and very quickly I realized this woman was so kind and lovely.”
Now, this unexpected friendship is making waves in all of their lives — and the new pals are hoping to meet up in the future.
“I never thought it would be found, let alone almost to the year exactly, let alone go so far and also to be found by the perfect person,” said Bisterzo.
Enes even has an idea for when they do: throw another bottle into the ocean together and find a new friend to add to their group.
