A love letter from a lonely sailor to his sweetheart in Croatia has come to light after drifting the seas for more than a decade.

Al Thomas was just cruising in his boat last Sunday, watching the annual Round the Island Power Boat Race, when he came across a wine bottle bobbing near the Castle Islands.

Mr Thomas explained to The Royal Gazette that whenever he is out on the water, he makes a point of picking up and disposing of any floating debris that might damage other boats.

That was about to be the case with this bottle — until he spotted a message inside.

“When I got closer to the bottle I saw that there was a note in there, and it took me a minute to get it,” Mr Thomas recalled.

“Every time I would reach out for it, a wave would come — so I had to lean out really far.

“It’s not something you see every day.

“You can see the addresses on the letter from the sender and the person that was supposed to receive it too.”

It fell to this newspaper to open the bottle and learn its contents. So thorough was its seal that it had to be broken.

The message inside appeared to be a love letter in Serbian dialect, put on paper 11 years ago on March 10, 2003.

The sailor, Nikola Bulas, was travelling on the MV Bulk America, a container ship, when he typed it, sealed it in the bottle and sent it overboard to Vesna Cvjetovic.

A rough translation emerged from Google Translate: Mr Bulas regretting “the immense sea between us” after a happy year together, and appeals to the winds and currents to carry his message across “the azure infinity”.

Next week, The Royal Gazette plans to send the letter to its intended address by post — with greetings from Bermuda.