On Wednesday, June 12th, the Burnhams were enjoying their annual shelling trip to Portsmouth Island when Will found something even more exciting and unusual than a helmet conch or angel wing. It was a corked wine bottle with a piece of paper in it. Who doesn't love a message in a bottle?
Will and Jenne have strong impulse control, or maybe they just like suspense, but they brought the bottle back to Ocracoke and waited over 24 hours to open it! Being avid Ocracoke Current readers (Will says he always knows more about what's going on here than at home in Ellicot City, MD), they wanted us to get the scoop on the grand opening.
Will and Jenne brought their bottle to my shop (shameless plug: The Black Schooner Nautical Shop in the Community Square) Thursday afternoon. Prolonging the anticipation of the big moment, we chatted for awhile about shelling.
Jenne is a serious shell-seeker and goes to Portsmouth every time they visit. She looks for lettered olives, Scotch bonnets, and whelks at high tide, low tide, or in-between. It's always worth doing.
"She goes to go shelling. I go to carry stuff," Will said. "And I always find the unusual things."
This is the first time he's found a bottle.
Its message beckoned. Will pulled out a corkscrew and removed the rotting cork. That was easy enough. But the cork had obviously leaked a little and the paper inside was damp and fragile. Will tried to shake it out with no luck. He tried to tweezer it out and a tiny bit of the paper tore away. There was only one thing we could do. I gave Will a brown paper bag and a hammer. He brought back a sack of glass shards and a faded, damp, handwritten letter.
Everyone, including my shop customers, crowded in for a closer look.... Will read the date: 25 August 2003 – ten years ago! For ten years that bottle had been bobbing along, carried by wind and tide, keeping its secret. And the secret is.... not written in English.
Oh, the suspense continues!
The letter was signed *Xeby* and launched in its bottle boat from Vila do Porto, on Santa Maria Island, in the Azores – over 2400 miles away across the vast ocean. Vila do Porto is famous for its white sand beaches and is a popular fishing and tourist destination, with a resident population of about 3000 people. Santa Maria Island is about 10 miles long and 6 miles wide and has a picturesque lighthouse. But, I digress...
The Azores are part of Portugal, so.... the letter must be in Portugese!
Ocracoke, being the cosmopolitan place that it is, is of course home to a native Portugese speaker. I sent Will and Jenne off to find Daniela Gilbert, who hails from Brazil, to see if she would do a translation.
And she did, deciphering parts of it with help from a magnifying glass.
Vila do porto 25 August 2003
If some lives form a perfect circle, others assume forms that we cannot always predict or understand. A loss is part of my joining, but also showed me what is precious, such as my love, and for that I am grateful.
The words that I will never tell you and…. except what the day less desired, but I don’t want to make of your departure…. something that’s still at the beginning, but is a new phase of our story. Of the challenges that the life has given me, it also makes us stronger. Your love is beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. You can’t even imagine how grateful I am for God has put you on my path. I felt and trusted that God reserved something very special for me. Today I have the certainty that it was worth the wait for so long. I don’t like to make promises so I don’t fail much much less promise a promise that doesn’t depend only on me. But one thing I am certain. While I love you, I will wait. If one bigger reason, destiny separates us with [?] missing you eternally, I will remember. The faith in God I like best is hope and it is on this faith that I will make my life from now on with the hope that we will be together again. I trust in the falling stars, the strength of our love, and the powers of the universe and the realization of our story and like this I will say goodbye soon. I keep hoping.
* Xeby *
Oh, the translation makes the mystery even deeper! Did Xeby think her beloved would find the bottle? Is it just a wish and hope cast upon the sea? Why were they parted? Are they together again? Or is Xeby still waiting?
Written very small along the side are some phone numbers. Will and Jenne promise to let me know if they ever try to call.
