Message In A Bottle

While enjoying a peppery Door County port a week ago, I noticed that the bottle would be a perfect vessel for a message sent out to sea. And with a week of longer sails ahead and plenty of time to keep the kiddo entertained, I thought it might be a perfect project to do with Claire while underway.

The first day, we drew pictures in the cockpit. Hers was a big purple heart with a snowman on the other side (of course), mine was a silly caricature of our boat and family, and Aaron drew an s/v Clarity compass. The next day, Claire spent the better part of an afternoon in her cabin, sorting her beads and making a beautiful necklace on a shoelace. And I penned a letter to whoever finds our bottle, or the powers that be.

On the third day, Claire helped as we rolled up our letters, dropped in the necklace, corked the bottle and headed up top. Then, with Aaron and I right next to her, she stepped over to the lifelines, gave the bottle a tight hug, and her eyes tripled in size as we told her to throw it overboard.

I tried to explain to Claire what our little project was all about, though I’m not quite sure how much she got it. A few minutes after she tossed it in the lake, she asked if she could throw it in again :). But we had a lot of fun in the process!

Likely, nobody will find it. But even so, it felt good to donate an offering to the mighty Lake Michigan, who’s treated us so well on this cruise, and kept us safe.