A couple in Bermuda celebrating 20 years of marriage received a special anniversary gift — a message in a bottle.Diana Sweetland and husband Jock Guthrie of Ramsey, New Jersey found the bottle in the waters off Pompano Beach.“We were wading around,” said Ms Sweetland. “It was a bit rainy and gloomy the other day. We were making the best of it.“I thought it was a beer bottle, and I asked my husband to retrieve it. We were trying to be ecologically responsible.“He didn’t want to leave it there so he waded out further and picked it up. He said ‘It is not a beer bottle, it is a wine bottle and there is a message in it’.”At first Ms Sweetland thought her husband was joking around, but quickly saw that he was serious.They were stunned and both stood there looking at it. Writing was clearly visible through the bottle.They could make out a date, September 24, 2004, and some of the message.“This bottle was thrown from a fishing boat while cod fishing somewhere off Nantucket Island ...”They decided to wait to open the bottle until The Royal Gazette arrived.The opening turned out to be more tricky than anyone expected. A corkscrew and a tweezer yielded no success. The message stuck in the bottle and the tweezer ended up ripping part of it.In the end, a staff member went behind the bar and broke the bottle over a trash can.Finally, the couple, and the many guests who had gathered to watch, could read the message in its entirety.The rest of the message stated: “I hope this bottle brings you good luck as it is a rare find. It would be rarer still if I heard back from you.“Please let me know when and where you found it. I look forward to hearing from you.”The same message was written on the other side of the page in Portuguese and was signed Pennel Ames of Nantucket, Massachusetts.As it turned out, it wasn’t all that rare for Mr Ames, a fisherman, to send a message in a bottle.He made news in 2007 when a bottle he threw overboard in 2006 washed up thousands of miles away in New Orleans, Louisiana.Mr Guthrie said they were looking forward to contacting Mr Ames.Since he only left his mailing address on the note, they planned to write to him once they returned home on Monday.The couple were actually married in Bermuda. Mr Guthrie is a musician and Ms Sweetland works in retail.“We have been back to Bermuda a few times,” said Ms Sweetland. “I have been coming since I was about 11 years old. I am originally from Arlington, Massachusetts.“This is the first time we have stayed at Pompano. On previous trips we had been here for lunch and wanted to come back and stay.“This is really a great spot and we love it. Everyone here is most friendly and they have great staff. There are really a good gang.”To read an article about Mr Ames’ other bottles see www.ack.net/message062807.html.