More than half a century after it was tossed into the Atlantic, a message in a bottle from a fishing boat off the Jersey Shore has completed an incredible journey—turning up on a remote island hundreds of miles away in the Bahamas.
Back in 1971, a young fisherman named John Forsyth, then just 18 and working aboard the Miss Belmar, decided to send a note drifting out to sea. The boat had left the Shark River Inlet at full throttle that morning, bound for the Hudson Canyon—about 90 miles east of Belmar—one of the most prized deep-sea fishing spots off the coast.
It was a long trip, but for Forsyth, a Neptune native who loved life on the water, the day was special enough to commemorate. He scribbled a few lines on a torn piece of brown lunch bag, slipped it into a Dr. Pepper bottle, and dropped it overboard.
“Sent off fishing boat Miss Belmar 90 miles east of Belmar Inlet,” the note read. “If found please call or write John Forsyth.”
The Discovery
More than five decades later, that bottle reappeared—not in New Jersey, but nearly 1,000 miles away. While exploring a quiet stretch of the Southern Bahamas in March, Clint Buffington, a teacher, songwriter, and self-described message-in-a-bottle finder from Utah, spotted something unusual peeking out from the brush.
“I looked down and there’s this kind of gap in the bushes and walked through and there was this bottle, clear as day, Dr. Pepper label facing the sky,” Buffington recalled in an Instagram video message. “I could immediately tell it was old and saw that brown paper inside and just knew.”
For Buffington, who has recovered more than 140 bottles, this one was special. It was the oldest message he had ever found.
Finding the Author
The note mentioned the Miss Belmar, so Buffington took to Instagram to share his find. His post—complete with photos of the bottle and the handwritten message—quickly caught attention back in New Jersey.
“The message itself says sent off fishing boat Miss Belmar 90 miles east of Belmar Inlet, and that name there is John Forsyth,” Buffington said in his video.
News of this eventually reached Alan Shinn, the current captain and owner of the Miss Belmar, who helped connect Buffington with Forsyth’s sister, Kathy Forsyth. She pulled out her brother’s old fishing logs—and there it was: proof that in 1971, John had indeed taken a trip 90 miles offshore.
“In 1971, it says in 1971, they went out to the canyon and they were 90 miles offshore, so that’s when I said one plus one equals two,” Kathy said.
A Journey Around the World
Experts believe the bottle drifted into the North Atlantic Gyre, a vast circular current that could have carried it east toward Europe, then south past Africa before looping back across the Atlantic to the Bahamas.
“Knowing my brother, he finished his lunch, he said, ‘Aha,’ wrote a note, stuffed it in there and just went ‘Boop,’” Kathy said. “There was no thought behind it.”
John Forsyth spent most of his life working around boats. He started out as a paying customer on the Miss Belmar, became a mate, and eventually took over as skipper by 1975. He died in 2022, never knowing that his bottle had survived decades of waves, storms, and salt air.
A Full Circle Moment
For Buffington, finding the message felt almost fated. “Whatever path my life took me down, I happened to be in the right place on the right day,” he said. “If we hadn’t decided to turn back looking on that beach…”
When Kathy learned of the discovery, she said it felt like a small sign from her brother. “Of all the people who could find it, his level of excitement is coming right through from my brother for sure. I’m so glad Clint found it.”
Buffington now hopes to deliver the note back to the Forsyth family in person—not by mail. Shinn has offered to fly Buffington and his family to Belmar for free so they can reunite the letter with John’s loved ones where it all began.
The New Jersey Digest is a new jersey magazine that has chronicled daily life in the Garden State for over 10 years.