Almost six years after a Canadian sailor threw it overboard, a message in a bottle has washed up in Bermuda.

The bottle from Comfort Cove, Newfoundland, was tossed into the water on June 7, 1997, and found by Canadian visitor Martin Cooper on Sunday.

Coincidentally, Mr. Cooper's father-in-law, Sidney Woolfrey, who was minister at the Wesley United Church in Bermuda from 1956-61, is from Newfoundland.

Mr. Cooper, a retired schoolteacher from Hamilton, Ontario, found the bottle near Ireland Island while out with his wife Linda Woolfrey-Cooper.

He told The Royal Gazette yesterday: "My wife had seen it on the beach and said it must be a message in a bottle and I said `yeah, yeah, yeah'.

"We took it back home and my nephew's son was there and we put it in a bag and broke it.

"You just don't expect to find things like this. We'll send this to the sailor who sent it, and if there is something in the paper we'll send that, too, with a Bermuda stamp.

"It must have gone a long way, over to Europe and back because that's the way the Gulf stream goes. So it's seen Europe and probably the Caribbean on it's way over."

The message, pictured above left, states: "This bottle was thrown into the sea from the fishing vessel Atlantic Dauphin on June 7 1997 near St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada, by Roy LeDrew, Box 55, Comfort Cove, Newfoundland, Canada, AOG 3KO".