Message in a bottle from young Danish boys washes up after nearly four decades

Lars and Palle tossed bottles from a ship in 1980, and one of them just washed up in Africa

In 1980, two brothers, Lars and Palle sailed with their parents from Texas to the Persian Gulf aboard the supertanker Kristine Maersk.

Delayed delivery
As they rounded South Africa, the boys tossed several bottles into the water with a message containing the date – 26/02/1980 – and a message.

“We are two boys, Lars and Palle, 12 and 7 years old, aboard a supertanker on the way from Texas to the Persian Gulf. Please send a note telling where you found this message,” it read.

The years passed and the boys grew up and forgot all about the messages they tossed overboard. But the website Danish Family Search recently heard from a man who found one of the bottles on a beach in southern Mozambique.

Palle found
A man named Palle Hørdum Gudmann recently wrote on his Facebook page that he is one of the boys who threw the bottles overboard.

He wrote that he had already been contacted in 1995 by a young man named Fabriao from Brazil, who said that he had found one of the bottles on an island near Rio de Janeiro.

Gudmann said of this latest discovery by a 36-year-old man named Tim from Africa: “I think it is a story worth telling and sharing.”

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