The world's oldest known message in a bottle has been found half-buried at a West Australian beach nearly 132 years after it was tossed overboard in the Indian Ocean, 950km from the coast. Until now, the previous world record for the oldest message in a bottle was 108 years, 4m and 18 days between jettison and discovery. The message is dated 12 June 1886 and was jettisoned from the German sailing barque Paula as part of a long-term German oceanographic experiment to better understand global ocean currents and find faster, more efficient shipping routes. The bottle was found just north of Wedge Island, 180km north of Perth by Tonya Illman near her son's car, which had become bogged in the soft sand. Researchers believe the bottle and message probably washed up there a year after being jettisoned, but lay buried in a layer of damp sand which helped preserve it, until a storm surge or similar event uncovered it more than a century later. Researchers believe the bottle was made by Daniel Visser and Zonen in Schiedam and is believed to have originally contained gin, or genever - the original juniper-flavoured spirit from which today's gin originates.
