漂流瓶，又叫许愿瓶，是中世纪时期人们穿越广阔大海进行交流的有限手段之一。发现一个可能从未知领域而来的漂流瓶，或许是一种惊喜、神秘、偶然、期待。快来，让小译带你开启漂流瓶的奇幻之旅！
Messages have been slipped into bottles and shipped on mysterious voyages at least since 310 B.C., when Greek philosopher Theophrastus employed the tactic to test his theory that the Atlantic flows into the Mediterranean Sea. But aside from researchers studying oceanic circulation, there are many other motives that compel people to cork up their words and send them on seafaring adventures.
早在公元前310年，人们就曾把消息放入瓶中，让瓶子开启神秘的海洋之旅，那时古希腊哲学家西奥弗拉斯塔（Theophrastus）也曾用这种方法来验证他的理论，他认为大西洋与地中海相通。除了专门研究海洋循环的研究人员外，还有很多人在各种因素的驱动下把想说的话写在纸上，投入海洋，让它们随漂流瓶一起历险。
- A letter from a soldier
来自士兵的一封信
In 1914, British World War I soldier Pvt. Thomas Hughes wrote a letter to his wife, sealed it in a ginger ale bottle, and tossed it into the English Channel. He died two days later fighting in France. Fast forward to 1999 when a fisherman found the bottle in the River Thames. It was too late to deliver the letter to Mrs. Hughes who died in 1979, but not too late for Hughes’ 86-year-old daughter, who was only 1 year old when her father died — the message was delivered to her at her home in New Zealand.
1914年第一次世界大战期间，英国陆军二等兵托马斯·修斯（Thomas Hughes）把给妻子写的信封在姜汁瓶中，投进英吉利海峡。两天后在与法军作战时，他不幸牺牲。直到1999，一位渔民在泰晤士河发现了这个瓶子，当时把它交给修斯太太已经为时尚晚，因为她已在1979年去世了，但所幸还能把它交给修斯先生86岁的女儿，修斯先生牺牲那年她才1岁——最终这封信寄给了新西兰的修斯女士。
- A German experiment
德国的实验
In 2018, Tonya Illman was walking around sand dunes on Wedge Island (near Perth, Australia) when she discovered an old gin bottle with a rolled up paper tied with string inside. The paper was dated June 12, 1886 and was from a German vessel. The German Naval Observatory wanted to learn more about ocean currents much like the "drift bottles' of ancient times. Therefore, the notes would ask people to write where and when they discovered the bottle and return it. A local maritime museum verified the note, and the bottle is currently on display.
2018年，汤娅·伊尔曼（Tonya Illman）在维基岛（靠近澳大利亚的伯斯）的沙丘上散步时，发现了一个陈旧的杜松子酒瓶，里面有一个用绳子绑着的卷纸。这个瓶子是1886年6月12日从德国的一艘轮船上扔下来的。德国海军天文台想要更多地了解洋流，便扔下了这个瓶子，这很像古代的漂流瓶。瓶中的纸条让捡到它的人们记录下发现瓶子时的地点和时间，再把它放回去。当地一个海洋博物馆核实了瓶中的便条，现在用于展览。
- The record holder
史上最古老的漂流瓶
In 2011, a Scottish fisherman named Andrew Leaper was pulling in his haul near the Shetland Islands when he spied a bottle in the catch. Within, he discovered an old letter, a very old letter — in fact, it was certified as the oldest message in a bottle ever found by the Guinness Book of World Records. The message was scrawled by Capt. C. Hunter Brown of the Glasgow School of Navigation and was sent to sea in 1914 along with a whopping 1,889 other bottles. A government agency in Aberdeen continues to track Brown's project; to date, 315 of his castoffs have been recovered.
2011年，苏格兰渔民安德鲁·里珀尔（Andrew Leaper）在谢德兰群岛附近收网时，在捕获物中发现了一个瓶子。瓶子里装有一封非常非常破旧的信——事实上，《吉尼斯世界纪录大全》已核实这封信是漂流瓶中年代最久远的。这封信由英国格拉斯哥航海学院的上尉C. 亨特·布朗所写，字体很潦草，1914年，他把这个瓶子和其他1889个瓶子一同放进了海中。阿伯丁的一个政府机构在继续追踪布朗投放的那批瓶子，到现在为止，已经找到了315个。
- Unfinished business
未竟事务
When the ocean liner the Lusitania, was struck by a torpedo on her 1915 journey from New York to Liverpool, it took a mere 18 minutes for her to sink. But that was long enough for one passenger to reportedly pen perhaps the most poignant and eerie message in a bottle yet recovered: "Still on deck with a few people. The last boats have left. We are sinking fast. Some men near me are praying with a priest. The end is near. Maybe this note will…" What the writer hoped the note might do is a secret forever swallowed by the sea.
1915年，远洋班轮“路西塔尼亚号”在从纽约到利物浦的途中被一枚鱼雷击中，仅仅18分钟，它就沉没了。18分钟虽短，但已足够一位乘客留下最为深刻且令人恐惧的留言，他把留言装在瓶子里，后来被人发现，上面写道：“我仍然和几位乘客在甲板上。最后一批救生船已经离开了，我们马上就要沉下去了。在我旁边的几个人在和一位牧师一起祷告。一切都快结束了。或许这个纸条会……”。写信人到底希望便条发挥怎样的作用已经永远成为了一个湮没在海中的秘密。
- Love potion
爱情魔药
In 1956, long before match.com was an option, a lovesick Swedish sailor by the name of Ake Viking took his search for love to the salt water. A quick message, “To Someone Beautiful and Far Away,” was corked in a bottle and dispatched into the ocean. Two years later, Viking's plea was answered by a Sicilian woman named Paolina. “I am not beautiful, but it seems so miraculous that this little bottle should have traveled so far and long to reach me that I must send you an answer,” she replied. The two began a correspondence that ended in Viking's move to Sicily to marry his match made by the sea.
1956年，在婚恋网站还没出现之前，一位名叫阿克·维金（Ake Viking）的瑞典海员得了相思病，于是他便想通过海洋寻找爱情。他快速写下一个纸条，“致远方的美人”，他把纸条装进瓶中，扔到海里。两年之后，维金的请求得到了一位西西里女士保林娜的回应。回信中她写道：“我并不漂亮，但是这个瓶子漂洋过海被我捡到，简直太神奇了，所以我必须回信给你。”从此两人便开始通信，最后维金去了西西里岛，和这位因海而结缘的保林娜女士结婚。
- Memo to mom
给母亲的留言
Ten years ago, a 10-year-old girl from Manhattan was visiting friends in Long Island when she scribbled a message and threw it in the ocean, enclosed in a ginger ale bottle. The bottle containing the missive written by Sidonie Fery， it was discovered this year by a crew cleaning up beach debris from Superstorm Sandy. The message, which was passed on to Fery's grieving mother, was a simple but profound reminder: “Be excellent to yourself, Dude.”
十年前，一个来自曼哈顿的10岁女孩去长岛拜访朋友，当时她写了一封信，并把这封信装到姜汁瓶中，扔到了海里。这个女孩名叫西多尼·费瑞（Sidonie Fery），瓶中只有一封她写给母亲的信，同一年，一位海员在超级风暴“桑迪”过后清理沙滩上的碎屑时发现了这个瓶子。瓶中费瑞写给悲伤中的母亲的话很简单，但给人印象深刻，她写道：“伙计，好好对自己”。
- Lifesaver
挽救生命
In 2005, more than 80 mostly-teenaged migrants were abandoned on a boat off the coast of Costa Rica. Left on the crippled vessel by the crew who was illegally smuggling the passengers, they were adrift without any means of typical communication. They ingeniously popped an SOS into a bottle that was miraculously found by fisherman, who delivered the message of “Please help us” to the denizens of a nearby World Heritage site island. The workers there alerted their headquarters, the lost-at-sea drifters were rescued, and the group was taken to the island to recover.
2005年，80多个移民被扔在哥斯达黎加海岸边的一艘船上，移民中大部分是青少年。非法偷渡乘客的船员把他们留在这个残破的船上，他们在海上漂流，没有任何可以和外界取得联系的方式。后来他们奇思妙想，把写有SOS信号的纸条装到瓶子里，放入海中，这个瓶子奇迹般地被一个渔民发现，渔民把这个写有“请救救我们”的纸条给了附近世界遗产岛屿的居民。那里的工作人员通知了总部，这群海上的漂流者最终获救，还被带到岛上休息恢复。
你是否也曾萌生过这样的念想，向大海中投一只漂流瓶，你会在瓶子里，放入一封怎样的信，又希望是谁看到它呢？快来，在评论区里写下心里的话吧~
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