An amateur fisherman made the “catch of the day” after finding a message in a bottle in waters off South Shore at the weekend.

Sam Stan was in his Boston Whaler with two friends when he spotted the bottle about 300 metres off The Reefs resort in Southampton.

Picking it up, he discovered a note inside that had been thrown overboard from a vessel ten years ago.

Mr Stan, 26, a farmer who works for Miles-To-Go, said: “We are all surfers, so after catching some fish we decided to go over to The Reefs Hotel area and scout out a surfing spot for the upcoming hurricane season.

“We were about 300 metres out when we started to head back in because it was about to start getting dark. We found it within about five minutes of heading back.

“It was hard to see the reefs in the glare so I had my eyes peeled already. I saw something and as we got closer we realised it was a bottle.

“I said to my friends, ‘Imagine if there’s a message in there’ — joking around. As we got closer to it, I could see there was a message in the bottle so I grabbed it out of the water.

“The bottle had a cork in it, so I was surprised it didn’t get any water in it. We took the note out which was sealed up in a plastic ziplock bag and to our excitement it was still in good condition.

“I didn’t have too much luck catching any fish but I think what I found was the catch of the day. It was the best feeling ever.”

Mr Stan said that the message read in part: “Sent 4/23/2012, from MS Amsterdam, 2012 Grand World Voyage.”

The messenger also provided an e-mail address and the location co-ordinates of the vessel when the bottle was dropped in the ocean — 25.0 34.50’ N 43.0 43.12’ W, which would have been in the mid-Atlantic, southeast of Bermuda.

Mr Stan sent an e-mail to the address and received a reply the next day which read: “Fantastic! I had all but given up on this. We were on the Grand World Voyage on board the MS Amsterdam — a Holland America vessel that has since been sold.

“We live on Pender Island, one of the Gulf Islands, just off Victoria on Vancouver Island, BC, Canada. Thanks very much for taking the time to send your message.

“On 4/23/2012 we would have been nearly finished our journey and returning to Ft. Lauderdale, where we had started out nearly four months earlier. It was a wonderful trip and now with your message I guess it is completed. Best wishes”