Wim Kruiswijk is fond of treasure hunt, and his quest usually takes place on the shores of the North Sea. True, the treasure for this Dutchman is not gold or diamonds, but ordinary scraps of paper sealed in glass bottles. Over the past 34 years, the man has managed to collect approximately 1,200 bottles of messages, and the most interesting is that he answered most of these sea letters.
Today Kruisveika is 68 years old, and he started his unusual hobby back in 1983, the Dutchman first discovered three bottles at the local beach, and each one had messages with the sender's return address. Wim wrote to all these people and to his surprise received an answer from all three addressees. Such a successful experience ignited in Kruisveik an unquenchable interest in hunting for bottles with messages and for collecting all the notes found. Since that time he regularly combs the nearest coast.
"I found myself looking for bottles on the beach of Zandvoort, where I live, and in the vicinity of the nearest Dutch islands. Messages in bottles are a very slow post. To find a bottle, you have to wait a day, or a week, or even a month, "Kruswijk said. If the search is successful, the man does not print his find immediately on the spot. He opens the letter only at home, so that one bottle could please him twice - when she appears from under the sand, and when reading the note already at home in her office.
In the first years of his unusual hobby the Dutchman found 50 bottles a year, but from 2000 their number dropped to 20-30 pieces per year. Probably, the reason lies in the fact that the beaches began to follow much better - they are regularly cleaned, and the treasure hunter does not always keep up to date on time. In addition, the man believes that the development of information technology and the spread of the Internet also played a role in that people began to forget about the ancient tradition of bottle mail. "Earlier I received an answer to half of my letters, but now messages began to come much less often. Most people need "instant gratification", admits the Dutchman.
Vic Cruiswijk is a retired and former accountant, which is especially noticeable in his approach to organizing an outlandish collection. Found on the shore of the message (almost all 1200) are stored in office folders and catalogs, although some of them remain in their bottles, if they differ in unusual shape or patterns. Some notes sail even in test tubes.
Bottle mail is a very ancient tradition, and the first mention of it is associated with the ancient Greek philosopher Theophrastus (Theophrastus), who lived around 310 BC. The learned man used bottles to study sea currents, and modern researchers still use this method in their work. Bottle mail helps specialists in developing a map of the currents of the World Ocean and in involving even ordinary citizens in scientific work.In the past, bottled mail was used by lost sailors who called for help in their sealed messages. In addition, such notes were thrown into the water to inform about the ship's wreck and say goodbye to their relatives. Today, messages in bottles are sent to the sea as a tribute to memory, and even the ashes of loved ones are sometimes sealed in glass flasks, symbolically sending them on the last journey through the waves. Although more often bottled mail helps to find new friends by correspondence, which has become quite a rare phenomenon nowadays. Although Kruuswijk, with his example, demonstrates that with the help of bottle letters it is still possible to get acquainted with new people.