OCEAN CITY– Ten months after his message in a bottle washed up on a beach in Ireland, a local boy made the trip across the Atlantic Ocean to meet the couple who found it.
Sasha Yonyak, the Ocean City resident who put a message in a bottle that eventually washed ashore in Donegal, traveled to Ireland last month to meet the couple who found the glass bottle.
“The story of the message in a bottle came to a happy end with a 10-day trip to Ireland,” said Vlad Yonyak, Sasha’s father.
Belfast residents Rita Simmonds and Ciaran Marron were walking on Magheraroarty Beach in January when they stumbled upon a glass bottle. Upon noticing it contained a note and two U.S. one-dollar bills, they took it home and let it dry by their fireplace overnight. When they carefully spread open the yellowed piece of paper after removing it from the bottle, they found a 2019 note from an 11-year-old Ocean City boy. The letter described his hobbies as well as his friends and family and asks the finder to call him.
Though the number was disconnected, Simmonds was able to find the Yonyak family through Facebook. They let Sasha know the bottle had washed up and spoke to him about their life in Ireland, inviting him to visit so they could show him the spot the bottle washed up.