A routine beach clean-up led to a man discovering a decades-old message in a bottle.

Dan “Sea Dog” Tucker, from Pembroke, found a sealed whisky bottle while picking up trash along the shoreline near Grey’s Bridge in Sandys — something he does about three times a week.

The letter, written in 1995 by Dutch sailor Jetze De Jong, was the second message in a bottle Mr Tucker, 70, has discovered.

He said: “It proves that lightning strikes twice, because I found one in Kent Lane, Devonshire, when I was eight years old, which was also written about in The Royal Gazette.”

According to the letter, Mr De Jong was the chief officer on the cargo ship Nedlloyd Rosario.

He wrote about the vessel, which was 212 metres long and 32 metres wide, in the message and also included an address to write to if the letter was found, which Mr Tucker plans to do soon.

The bottle also contained a nautical map that marked the location near Nassau, Bahamas, where it was dropped.

Mr Tucker urged others to clean up around the island’s shoreline and hopes it will lead to more 30-year-old messages in bottles being found.

He said: “Sometimes when you’re looking ahead, you forget about what’s right in front of you.”