“Darling Martha, a miracle if you ever read this. But it won’t be your first bottle letter. You have many more away out in the mid-Pacific.”
This is the message that Mr. Tom Waugh wrote in 1978 before launching it from a cargo ship into the sea 30 nautical miles north of Sydney, Australia. The letter was written in packing slips from the container ship, wrapped in the pages of a women’s magazine, and tightly sealed with a cork and a screw top.
Message found at Wallaga Lake
Last month, 45 years later, Luke Hamilton — coincidentally born in 1978 — found this intriguing letter in perfect condition.
Mr. Hamilton is a coastal weeds project officer, so he spends most of his time scouring the remote beaches of the south coast. He was walking on the shores of Wallaga Lake in New South Wales, Australia, when he found the bottle. He found several letters and had just found another message three weeks earlier, so he didn’t think this message was much older — until he opened the letter.
In the bottle, the above message was addressed to a 12-year-old girl named Martha Brister, and another letter was addressed to the finder. Hamilton believes the message had been long-submerged by the sea dunes but brought to the surface by recent ocean swells.
Finding Martha Brister
Hamilton asked his retired merchant seaman father-in-law to help him find Martha. Soon, he had seen her and confirmed she was the right person. Ms. Martha Cave, now 57, is a horse trainer at Warwick Farm Racecourse in Sydney.
She first met Mr. Tom Waugh, a sailor, in England when she was about 8 years old. Tom, who hails from New Zealand, used to live a few doors from Martha Cave, then Martha Brister. After his six-month voyages at sea, he would regale her with stories of the sea and show her how to tie ship knots.
“He was like a grandfather to me,” remembers Cave. “He’d always call me darling Martha.”
Treasures at sea
Tom Waugh’s letters to Martha continued even after she emigrated to Australia from Essex, England, in 1976. His bottle letters often said: “When you find this letter, you’ll know you have found a piece of treasure.”
This is the fifth letter from Tom that Martha has received over the years. The other bottle messages were found in far-flung locations such as the shores of South America, the Philippines, the Solomon Islands, and Wilson’s Prom near Melbourne. Finders also often included their particular messages before sending them to her,
“At that age, to have someone go out of their way to do something like that for you was so special,” Martha said.
However, this is the first message she has received in 43 years. In this letter, Tom apologizes for not visiting her while he was docked in Sydney while traveling up the coast of Australia. Sadly, shortly after Tom sent the letter to her in 1978, they lost contact, and he later retired to the UK.
“A lot of times over the years, I’ve been sad that I haven’t been able to tell him how much I appreciated it,” she says.
A blast from the past
More interestingly, Martha and Hamilton have a mutual friend in Tathra, NSW, Australia. She remembers Tom Waugh as an “old man” when they met. She says he’s since passed away.
Finding this message in a bottle after more than four decades feels like unearthing a treasure for Martha. It is a treasure of friendship and a reminder of the kindness of a man who went out of his way to make her feel special. She hopes there may be more “miracle” messages waiting for her.
“I thought I’d never see another, but here it is,” she says. “So, hopefully, we get another miracle.”
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