The weathervane scallops made for one tasty dinner, but Christine Cunningham is still enjoying a second beachcombing find from Rose Spit.
Two days before Christmas, Christine was on the Spit with her husband Aaron when she spotted a sealed glass bottle sitting in the dunes.
Inside was a paper note, perfectly dry.
The pair drove all the way home to Port Clements before Aaron carefully unsealed the bottle with a power drill.
On one side, the note had a typed message in English, Spanish, and French saying the bottle was cast away to celebrate the Aug. 19, 2011 wedding of Christine and Nils Polster, in northern Germany.
On the back was a handwritten German message from some bubbly-sounding wedding guests.
“Greetings from your freaky friends!” it read.
“Our bottle almost drowned, but luckily someone save it! If you get this letter, we are going to party!”
After phoning the number on the note and speaking with Christine and Nils, there is indeed a good chance the four will party — especially if they meet in August.
That’s because the two Christines not only share a first name, but they each got married on the same August weekend, five years ago.
“We could have had nothing in common,” says Christine Cunningham.
“But they turned out to be pretty neat people, and we had a bit of a connection.”
The Polsters live in Egestorf, a town of about 2,500 in northern Germany, where they run their own violin shop.
After their wedding, a friend of theirs who works on a freighter dropped the glass bottle in the ocean — likely in the South Pacific.
Christine Cunningham said it was all an incredible coincidence, and after chatting on the phone and by email, there’s a good chance they’ll get together someday.
“I think Canada’s more on their radar now as a place to travel when they get a chance,” she said.
“They’re like newfound friends.”