BRADENTON BEACH, Fla. –  When Paris Hoisington and her family found a message in a small bottle on the beach last month, it seemed the story had ended with the bottle’s 4,600-mile, eight-year journey.

But now, the Hoisingtons have heard back from the message sender.


What You Need To Know

  • Payton Hollenbeck said she tossed the bottle into the ocean 8 years ago in Oahu

  • Josie Law, 11, found the bottle in May off Cortez Beach on Anna Maria Island

  • The message inside the bottle had a phone number, which the family texted and got a response 

  • The family plans to release their own message in a bottle before returning to Michigan 

  • CLICK ON THE VIDEO LINK ABOVE TO WATCH THE FULL STORY

Peyton Hollenbeck of Hawaii said her younger brother wrote the message but they put down her phone number, hoping to hear back one day from someone oceans away.

Hollenbeck, now 21, said she and her younger brother Elias, tossed that bottle into the ocean at Kaena Point in Oahu eight years ago.

“I just remember doing it because I had been walking on the beach at my favorite surf spot and I had seen a message in a bottle,” she said in a new interview. “There was no phone number but my brother and I were like, ‘Oh we should just go make one ourselves for fun.’ “

Paris Hoisington, 31, and her daughter Josie Law, 11, point to the area on Cortez Beach in Manatee County where the girl found a message in a bottle on Sunday (Spectrum News/Josh Rojas).

The note inside the tiny bottle reads ‘Hello people who found this, you will be happy that you found this. Why? Cause you will know me with this number.’

Hoisington said she texted the phone number and got a response.

“’My brother and I made that when I was younger,’” she said the text read. “’We actually live in Hawaii.’ And I said, ‘You’re kidding.’” 

Hollenbeck said she’s familiar with that cycle because the only reason she threw a message in a bottle into the ocean is because she had previously found one as a kid.