Message in a Bottle Travels from
Maine to France
by Laurie Schreiber
Pellinec—a cove in Penvénan, Côtes-d’Armor, Brittany—is where Le Goff found Falt’s message in a bottle after it’s decade-long trans-Atlantic journey. Photo courtesy of Sarah Falt
SOUTHWEST HARBOR – In 1998, Southwest Harbor boatbuilder Jarvis Newman was getting ready to help a good friend sail his Mason 44 to Bermuda.
Newman’s young grandchildren—Susan, Sarah, and Gordon Falt—wrote messages and stuck them in plastic soda bottles. They asked their “Pop” to drop them into the sea during his trip. The kids had tossed messages-in-a-bottle off nearby Greenings Island before, and got a reply back from Isle au Haut, off the Blue Hill peninsula, some 50 miles away.
Newman had a rough passage. Approaching Bermuda, he dropped the bottles into the sea, spacing them a hundred or so miles apart.
Sarah Falt’s original letter written on October 18, 1998. It is ripped from being taken out of the bottle for the first time in 10 years. Photo courtesy of Sarah Falt
Falt was eight at the time. Her letter was written in child’s print, the lines slanted on the page. It read in part, “My pop is sailing from Maine to Bermuda. He is leaving October 23, 1998 and will drop this letter off somewhere in betwean [sic].” She gave her then-address in Woolwich, Maine, and asked the finder to let her know where the bottle ended up.
Ten years later, a junior at Mount Desert Island High School, Falt got home from school on a rainy day in March and looked through the mail. She had no idea why there was a letter addressed to her, in curlicued handwriting, from France. Moreover, the letter was addressed to her old Woolwich address. The family had long since moved to Southwest Harbor. Fortunately, the Woolwich postmaster was in the habit of sending bundles of mail, related to the estate of Falt’s grandfather, to her father. So the postmaster forwarded Falt’s letter as well.
It was a reply from a young man named David Le Goff, who wrote, in English that he was 18 years old and had found the bottle a year previously, on January 6, 2007.
“This bottle had a very long trip to arrive in France, more exactly in Brittany (Cotes d’Armor) located in northwest of France,” he wrote. “I found it on a small Anse name ‘Pellinec’ in my city which is called ‘Penvenan.’ I am answering to your letter one year later and I hope it will reach you. Looking forward to hearing from you soon. Life is succession of chance.” An “Anse” is a cove. Le Goff had also enclosed a copy of Falt’s letter.
She had completely forgotten about the bottle, which had wandered on the currents across the Atlantic.
“I was speechless,” she said. “The next day I brought it in to my French teacher at high school.”
With her teacher’s help, Falt wrote back to Le Goff. The two have corresponded ever since, sending letters and facebook messages and books – one about Acadia National Park from her, another about the Brittany coast and islands from him. Sarah even minored in French in college, knowing that, one day, she would visit her pen pal.
Sarah Falt’s original letter written on October 18, 1998. It is ripped from being taken out of the bottle for the first time in 10 years. Photo courtesy of Sarah Falt
This past December, Falt made that trip, flying to Paris, where she stayed a week to do some sightseeing. Then she took a train to Brittany, where she finally met Le Goff. He took her to the exact spot where he’d found the bottle, on the French shore on the English Channel.
“It’s like the Maine coast, rocky, with giant, pink granite stones,” Falt said. “It’s very pretty.”
They also toured the area’s castles, cathedrals, chateaus, and significant World War II sites.
“It was a wonderful trip. I’m so glad I did it,” she said.
She got to see her original letter, which Le Goff has in a frame over his desk. He didn’t save the bottle, which had corroded during its long journey.
Le Goff, now 25, is a trained hairdresser and an avid collector of Roman and Gallois coins, and French Revolution swords and guns—an appropriate avocation: His last name, going back to the 11th century, means “blacksmith.” Sarah, 24, completed her studies in historic preservation at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, and will be working as a personal assistant in Florida.
The two expect to be lifelong friends. He’d like to visit the U.S, and Falt has not finished exploring France.
As for her grandfather?
“He was very excited for me to go over,” she said. “I think he’s proud of his part in the story. If it weren’t for him, the bottle wouldn’t have made it that far.”