A message from halfway across the sea

By Clint Buffington

Imagine lying belly-down on a paddleboard 50 centimeters wide, a thousand miles from land in any direction, swimming through a cold, black ocean at midnight. Inky waves surround you. Jellyfish zap you now and then. Something swirls nearby and you wonder if it’s a shark… Are you there? In your wetsuit? Salt-soaked hair matted to your head? You may be wondering: Why am I here? Well, for the last three weeks, you and two teammates have been taking two-hour turns paddling this slender board, round the clock, from Canada to France. Now, stay put on that paddleboard while your friends snooze in their warm, dry bunks aboard the support boat trailing you, and I’ll tell you a story.

In 2019, my dad and I chartered a fishing boat to take us to a remote Caribbean island. The sky flamed blue above glinting turquoise waves. Tradewinds gusted, constant and warm. It was a long boat ride, and as we neared the island, our captain pointed the boat to shore, got up some momentum, then cut the engine and raised the prop out of the water.

There was a breath or two of sudden silence after hours of relentless outboard motor whine. Then the bow slid into grainy sand in the shallow water just offshore.

My salty dad, with his salt and pepper beard, hiked his pack up onto his shoulder and hurled himself over the side of the boat. Sploosh! He waded ashore in hip-deep water. I marveled at his ease in doing this at 70 years old. I tumbled out of the boat and followed.

We squelched out of the surf and sat on a massive, silvery driftwood log. I love this part of our beachcombing ritual—sitting on driftwood and preparing for the hike ahead, shooting the breeze and dreaming about what we might find, knowing that we are the only human beings on this far-flung island.

“How many messages in bottles are you gonna find today, Clint?” my dad said.

“Well, Dad, I don’t know,” I said with eyes gleaming, “But it’s been four years since I have gotten to look for these things and I’m feeling lucky. I’m thinking ten.”

“Ten!” My dad rumbled in his famous lion-voice. “Well, hell, why not twenty?”

“Why not!” I shouted, lacing up my dry hiking boots. We stood, hoisted our packs, and set off on the hunt.

I am used to walking many miles before finding treasures, especially a message in a bottle. Some days, I walk eight, ten, or twelve miles and never find anything besides ghost nets too big to move, or Ospreys building sad nests out of plastic rope. Finding messages in bottles requires long miles and patience.

Imagine my surprise when less than 100 feet into this hike, I walked into one of the most beautiful and enchanting messages in bottles I have ever found.

There it was: a light yellowy green bottle, with a beautiful, large scroll inside. It looked exactly how a message in a bottle looks in movies—totally classic, complete with faint ink handwriting barely visible through the paper. The bottle and paper glowed in the bright sun—and that writing, it looked…not English. Maybe French?

Hours and miles passed by as we found “treasure” among the flotsam. By the time we returned to the dinghy, Dad had found three glass floats, and I’d found two. Dad also found three messages in bottles, and I found seven, so we reached my prediction of ten between the two of us.

Of the three bottled messages my dad found that day, one was from 1970, making it 49 years old. It was an amazing day of beachcombing—one I will never forget. I am still unraveling the mysteries behind several of the bottled messages I found that day. There was a tingle of magic in the air as we schlepped our packs, full of tinkling glass goodies, into the boat.

“Do you think anyone will believe it?” My dad said. “Ten messages in bottles? Five floats?” He laughed into the wind as the motor fired up.

The sun sank slow and steady over the ocean, and I relished every spine-crackling bump as the small dinghy ferried us home, hammering through one wave after another. Salt spray cascaded over the bow and sides of the boat and soaked us like a water park ride. Amber-golden sunlight sparkled on the ocean to dazzling effect: iridescent blue and gold, the colors of pre-twilight at sea, closing out a father and son treasure-hunting adventure.

I looked over at my dad slugging down a Coke, his famous mustache and beard flapping wildly in the salty wind. I felt so grateful for our time together, the beauty of this day, and this sunset. We reached the warm, dry comfort of home, exhausted and grungy as hell, with packs full of treasures that most people would regard as garbage. I prayed to the gods of adventure to be as healthy as he is at his age, to never lose the “sight” for treasures, and to always appreciate the joy of it all.

I cut open this bottled message one wintry day in February 2020 while snow fell outside my Indiana home. My wife Kate’s sister, Claire, who is very talented with a camera, was there to film the opening. As the diamond-crusted bit of my Dremel tool whizzed and whined against the glass, the bottle cracked open with a small explosion, and there was the sepia scroll.

I unrolled the paper, revealing a full page of French writing: dates, numbers, names, all totally inscrutable to me—a mystery. I flew to the computer and started typing into an online translator every phrase I could make out. What came back—snippets out of context—was bewildering, like trying to talk to someone with bad cell service. I mumbled to myself: “5 August 2009…story of three women… passionate… the Northern Atlantic… paddleboard… a tiny little plank 50 cm wide… the strength of the arms… Stephanie, Flora, Alexandra… three friends and coast guard professionals… athletic exploit…”

None of us could comprehend what was written. A paddleboard?! If these women were halfway across the ocean when they sent this message in a bottle… what happened? Did they make it across? Did they even survive? Immediately, I sent a picture of this message to Kate’s best friend Emily, who is fluent in French and married to a French man. Maybe she could make sense of it? I did determine that the message was penned by French filmmaker Lucie Robin, who filmed the expedition. I sent her an email.

I searched for information about anyone who had crossed the Atlantic by paddleboard, and the Internet told me about Chris Bertish. Now, Bertish did an amazing thing by crossing the Atlantic alone—way beyond my abilities or the abilities of most humans, full stop. But he did cross on a stand up paddleboard, using a paddle to propel a craft that looks an awful lot like a boat, which included an enclosed cabin. I take nothing from Bertish’s amazing achievement, but it didn’t seem quite as outlandish to me as making such a long journey lying belly-down on a standard paddleboard. Next, I typed in those three names, and suddenly, decade-old French news snippets popped up mentioning this trio of women: Stephanie Barneix, Flora Manciet, and Alexandra Lux, all professional aquatic athletes. I came across a CBC article from August 28th, 2009, that described how Stephanie, Flora, and Alexandra were “within sight” of France at the end of August, after setting out from Canada on July 5th on a paddleboard.

“The question was, ‘How long will it take?’” Stephanie told the CBC, “So we were ready to stay on the ocean for three months. But, it was really hard and some days we didn’t go really fast. Some days we went 16 miles and some days 50 [miles],” she added. “Sometimes we were vomiting on board … and at night we couldn’t see the waves, so we were seasick.”

So they did make it! Wild. I also found an old blog page from 2009, kept by someone on board the support boat for this adventure. Translated, it reads:

“The moon and Jupiter are setting, Venus has risen, and the sun is about to come. Nothing in this infinite space bears witness to the major event that will occur at this precise location. We have crossed half the course. At 5:33 a.m. universal time, right on the rotation between Flora and Alexandra, we found ourselves equidistant from the island of Cape Breton in Canada and Capbreton in France, i.e. 2346 km. It’s party time on board, we kiss each other, and the siren on board blares to wake the crew off watch. A hot amber drink enhanced with a liquid dear to our Caribbean islands flows freely. Like Sir Edmond Hillary when he reached the summit of Everest, here we are at the top of the mountain. We now only have to go down to the finish line and Lucie, as a flag, throws a bottle at the sea with the whole history of the Ucar Cap Odyssée.”

Lucie…throws a bottle at sea? That’s this bottle, I thought—this one right here in my hands.

I was blown away to find a Guinness World Records entry that records the final distance of their transatlantic paddle: 4,830 kilometers, or just over 3,000 miles. What these women did was so grueling and difficult that no one had ever even attempted it before. Who in their right mind would?

As I learned later, no one involved in the paddling expedition really knew whether it could even be done. There was some question as to whether the human body could physically withstand paddling hard in often frigid north Atlantic water for two hours out of every six (that’s eight hours every day), round the clock, for 60 or so days straight, rarely sleeping, never quite eating enough to replenish the energy they’d burned. But they did it nonetheless.

Suddenly, it all landed for me—it all felt real. I stared blank-eyed at the screen with a gaping mouth and tried to fathom this—to believe it, to understand it, to conceive of what it would take to do this. Grit beyond measure; ferocity of spirit; a compelling dream and unwavering inspiration; absolute trust in the drive and the athletic abilities of your companions. Never had I been so close to such sheer physical prowess, such mental strength and focus, such raw athletic achievement. That night, after Claire and I recounted the whole, confusing, unfinished story to Kate, I dreamed of a hard swim in a turbulent ocean. The next day, I received an email from the brilliant Emily—a full translation of the bottle’s message:

Stephanie and Alex on board the support vessel, while Flora paddles in the background, crossing the halfway mark of the course (Lucie Robin).

“5 August 2009

1267 miles from Cape Breton (Canada) –

1267 Miles to Capbreton, France

In the middle of the North Atlantic

This is the story of three athletic young women, passionate about the ocean, who decided to cross the Northern Atlantic on their paddleboard; A tiny plank 50 cm wide and 5m long, propelled by the sole strength of the arms of the rower. Every 2 hours, the three friends and coast guard professionals take turns rowing, progressing by their bare hands on this unpredictable sea.

Beyond the athletic exploit, it is proof of shared work and solidarity, of defense of the environment, of respect for the ocean, and of belief in mankind. I hope to tell you more one day.

Don’t hesitate to contact me when you find this courageous bottle that survived the ocean elements.

—Lucie”

Over the following days, I heard back from Lucie Robin, who sent the bottle. “What a hell of a surprise!!” she wrote, “I’m very surprised and so happy that my message got somewhere! Lucky you found it!” She explained that she’d made a documentary about the crossing, and she sent me a DVD copy of it all the way from France. Lucie alerted the paddlers—Stephanie, Flora, and Alex—who also wrote to me. All were excited to hear about their message being found. They were just as kind and lovely as you always hope your heroes will be.

Stephanie wrote first: “I can’t believe you found this bottle!! Amazing!” She continued, “When I received the mail from Lucie about the bottle…I cried! Unbelievable!” In writing with Stephanie, I learned that prior to their ocean-crossing, incredibly, she had endured two separate bouts of breast cancer, treatment, and recovery. Can you imagine swimming a paddleboard across the Atlantic Ocean after that? But, on the other hand, who else would be tough enough?

Next, Alex wrote: “It’s so amazing to find this bottle with Lucie’s message just now,” she said, “If you come to France, we’d be happy to meet you and share a little moment together.”

Flora added, “Wow, this is amazing, the bottle was found by a treasure hunter! What a story to tell!”

Since completing their historic crossing of the Atlantic, all three women have continued to be the hardworking and inspiring people they are. If you can believe it—and I scarcely can myself—Stephanie, the ringleader of the crossing, and Alex decided to break their own record. In early 2023, to raise money for children sick with cancer, Stephanie, Alex, and six teammates crossed the Pacific Ocean from Peru to Polynesia (over 8,000 km), paddling round the clock for 80 days this time.

Flora got back into the world of competition, too, and continued medaling in world-championship paddleboard contests. All three are moms now—perhaps their most epic journey yet, and one they will experience together for far longer than any of their ocean crossings. These days, Lucie’s message commemorating the halfway point of their historic paddleboard journey rests, framed, in a place of honor on my living room wall.

“What a story,” Flora said. What a story indeed. And all I did was go for a walk on a beach with my dad.

Read some myths about messages in bottles ›

Read some love stories tied to messages in bottles ›

Read Clint Buffington’s profile in The New Yorker ›

All photos courtesy of Clint Buffington except as marked.

This article appeared in Beachcombing Magazine Volume 47 March/April 2025.