The quest to reply to boy's message in a bottle

When six-year-old Blake threw a message in a bottle into the sea, he hoped it would reach far away shores. But when the person who found it had no way of contacting him, it was not the end of the tale.

The problem with finding a mysterious message in a bottle is there is often no way to reply to whoever sent it.

Six-year-old Blake thought he had solved the problem by including an email address when he threw his into the sea at South Shields.

Three months later, it washed up on a beach 380 miles away (612km) in Søndervig, on the west coast of Jutland, Denmark.

The man who discovered it, Jan Cassøe, tried to contact Blake's family, but there was a problem - the email address was wrong.

After having no luck with the erroneous email, he contacted a South Shields-related Facebook page in the hope of finding Blake's family.

"It was exciting to find the bottle, get the letter out and read it, so of course we wanted to let Blake know that we have found it," he said.

Hundreds of people shared the post and, finally, the message reached Blake's mum Becca.

"I didn't realise until afterwards that I had put the wrong email address on," she said.

When her son did not realise the mistake, she decided not to confess and waited to see how things played out.

"It was never supposed to get on social media but it has all taken off from there," she said.

Speaking to BBC Radio Newcastle, Blake said he was "super excited" when his bottle was discovered.

"The man who found it even sent pictures of the beach he found it on," he said.

"It looked like our beach because he took a picture from the top of the cliffs."

Blake's mum said the discovery of her son's letter had made him the "coolest person in school".

BBC Look North weather presenter Paul Mooney said the bottle probably made it to Denmark due to prevailing south-westerly winds.

But he said there were "all sorts of variables" which could have prevented it from ever reaching the shore.

It is not the first time in recent years a message in a bottle has made it to mainland Europe from the north-east of England.

Siblings Harry and Grace threw their bottles off Roker Pier, Sunderland, last year.

Five-year-old Harry's message was discovered in Denmark in April, but it took another six months for Grace's bottle to wash up in Sweden.

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