Photo:XIMENA DE LA CAMARA

More than a decade ago, Sidonie Fery, a ten year old girl living in Manhattan, threw a message in a bottle into Long Island Sound. The message was a line from her favorite move – “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure,” which read ” “Be excellent to yourself, Dude!”  It also included the girl’s family phone number. In April 2010, Sidonie died tragically in a fall in Switzerland.  In December of last year, the bottle was found by a group cleaning up debris left by Hurricane Sandy. The bottle was recently returned to Sidonie’s mother, Mimi Fery.

This Saturday, a plaque was placed on a rock near the bridge at Patchogue Long Island Beach Club, where the bottle was discovered. 

Plaque marks where Sandy message in a bottle found 

The bottle only traveled a mile or two westward from where it was likely deposited to the location where parks workers found it. It was intermingled with broken docks, boating gear and a spectrum of sea trash.

But because the note included the girl’s New York City phone number, what otherwise would have been a worthless piece of trash became a priceless memento. Workers in Patchogue, about 60 miles east of Manhattan, called the number and returned the bottle to her mother, Mimi Fery.

 Fery said she sobbed when she heard workers had found the bottle and was grateful to them.

“It’s unbelievable,” she said Saturday of the commemoration. “The town is amazing, my daughter was a lovely and lively person and very fun, she would do fun things. She always brought joy to everybody no matter how she felt.”

Thanks to Alaric Bond for passing the story along.