(Getty Images/Hans Barten)
GLOUCESTER (AP/WBZ NewsRadio 1030) -- A message in a bottle that a woman tossed off the coast of Massachusetts has been found nearly two decades later in Nova Scotia.
"Hi friend, I am a visitor to Gloucester. I hope you will let me know if and when you find this. Cheers, Rita," the letter read.
Eighty-year-old Rita Ganim told WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Laurie Kirby she dropped the bottle into Ipswich Bay in August 2000 with a short message asking the person who found it to contact her via the email address she included.
"I just thought it was kind of fun," Rita explained. "I look for fun and creativity in life and I said, wouldn't this be cool?"
The bottle was all but forgotten until Ganim received a call from the Buffalo News saying someone found it.
Eleven-year-old Dallas Goreham had been looking for sea glass in the Canadian province last Wednesday when he came across the bottle.
"I'm just a crazy lady that threw a bottle in the water 18 years ago, and I thought I'd probably get a pirate with two teeth missing and a patch over his eye, and I wound up with an 11-year-old boy," she said.
The boy's mother tracked Ganim down through the newspaper and sent a photo of her son holding the message.
While there are no set plans, Ganim says she would love to meet the finders of her bottle.
(© Copyright 2018 The Associated Press and WBZ NewsRadio 1030. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Laurie Kirby reports