IN SEA FOR 10 MONTHS

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 144, 14 March 1939, Page 6

IN SEA FOR 10 MONTHS

Bottle Thrown Overboard From Liner Dominion Special Service. DUNEDIN, March 13. A bottle which floated ashore at Hook Point, Fraser Island, off the east coast of Queensland, on February 2, recalled the visit to Australia last year of a large contingent of New Zealand returned soldiers. The bottle was thrown overboard in mid-Tasman from the Monowai ou April 24, and it bore the signatures of Messrs. A. Watson, W. Mawhinney, E. T. .Seymour, G. Renwick, and J. A. Morris, all of Dunedin. The bottle, as fate would have it, was seen bobbing about in the waves 10 months later by Mr. V. H. Macdonald, lighthouse-keeper at Hook Point, who also is a returned soldier. He retrieved it as he went out to tend bis two lights, and was so pleased with this unexpected break in the monotony of his vigil that he wrote to ‘each of the five signatories, who have just received his letters. Mr. Macdonald mentions that he found the bottle not 40 miles from the place where the Maheno, which was used as a troopship during ■ the war. was wrecked several years ago.