A ST James’ couple have finally met the American teen whose message in a bottle they found on a Donegal beach.
Rita Simmonds and her partner Ciaran Mallon found the bottle while walking on Machaire Rabhartaigh beach back in January and after drying it out by the fire, they discovered that it had been written by a young boy from Ocean Beach, Maryland in the United States.
Written by 11-year-old Sasha Yonyak in 2019, the intact message detailed his friendships, hobbies – including fishing – and a phone number to contact him on.
However, when the couple tried to contact him, the number was out of service which inspired them to do everything they could to try and contact the boy.
Speaking to the Andersonstown News, Ciaran said: “When I found the bottle, the first thing I said to Rita is that this is going to change our lives. I knew the bottle was going to take us on a journey.
“The phone number was for a shop in Ocean City, Maryland. I looked it up on Google and the shop next door. I contacted the shop next door to see if they knew him.
“In the meantime, Rita had sent an email to the local Ocean City radio station and a journalist there knew Sasha’s dad and put us in contact with him.”
Rita added: “It was kind of special because Sasha would have been grieving at the time because his friend and neighbour Wayne, who would have taken him fishing and who actually took him out on the boat to send the message had passed away just before we found it.
“They would have been very close and I am sure that it was nice for him to know that someone had actually found it.”
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Sasha and his father Vladimir flew to Ireland to meet the couple following a GoFundMe campaign and Stephanie Abrams, an American radio host who has become fascinated by their story, has paid for the four of them to stay at Harvey’s Point Hotel in Donegal for two nights and also for Sasha and Vladimir to stay at the Merrion in Dublin for two nights during their stay.
Whilst in Donegal, they will visit Machaire Rabhartaigh beach where they plan on sending another message in a bottle out to sea.
Explaining how the idea came about, Sasha told us that he found the bottle on the shore back home at Ocean Beach and the message inside said to pass it on so he used the same bottle to send the message which eventually ended up in Donegal.
Describing his first impressions of Ireland, Sasha said: “I thought it would have been very cold but it’s not that cold actually.
“I can’t wait to go and look at the beach where the bottle was found.”
Since the story was initially broke by the Andersonstown News back in January, it has made headlines around the world with Rita adding: “The American papers have picked it up, my sisters in New Zealand and Australia have also seen it on the news. We have been blown away by it all.”
