Pirate map in a bottle found in Panama 22 years after it was dropped into the sea in Sweden

A pirate map in a bottle has been found in Panama - 22 years after it was posted in Sweden. In 1992 brother and sister Erik and Lina Runestam, with their friend Christoffer Hogstrom dropped a letter in the sea in Hunnebostrand. It was found in November by Leonard Pearson, who lives in Panama.



He said he used Google Translate to help him read the message and sent a reply, hoping it would reach the kids who wrote the message in a bottle. Erik said: "My memory is a bit blurry because I just turned six that summer. We wanted to make it look old school so we burned the edges of the paper and we wrote a message saying we were in desperate need of help, saying we were stranded on a desert island."

Erik remembers being excited about sending the message in the bottle. He added: "Our dad told us we should wait until the wind was blowing off land because it might go as far as England, so we were a bit excited about that. It would have travelled north of Denmark, through the English Channel to cross the Atlantic. Our hopes weren't that high to even get to England." Erik had lost touch with his childhood friend Christoffer - they hadn't spoken for 10 years.



So Erik was very surprised when Christoffer sent a photo of the letter with a reply from Panama. The letter, dated 6 November 2014, reads: "Bueno dias. I have found this message in a bottle at Playa del Dragos, Bocas del Toro. I used Google Translate, and it seems the message is in Swedish? I hope that the address is correct and that this letter reaches the kids who sent the message." Erik said: "I really want to tell Leonard that it has reached us and we're no longer kids but he didn't post a return address so we're trying to find him."