By WECT Staff | June 7, 2020 at 1:26 PM EDT – Updated June 8 at 4:37 AM
HOLDEN BEACH, N.C. (WECT) – Two girls with hundreds of miles between them have become friends all thanks to a little surprise that washed ashore in Brunswick County.
11-year-old Sofia Wilson was visiting family in Florida when she decided on a whim to send off her very own “message in a bottle.”
“It said my name, I don’t like Coronavirus, and I’m sick of it and I put my email,” said Sofia.
When Sofia tossed the bottle into the sea on May 23, her mother wasn’t optimistic that anything would come from it.
“I was like ‘oh no.’ Breaks my heart. She thinks she’s gonna send this out and someone is actually going to find it,” said Kim Wilson.
However, that all changed a week later when another 11-year-old girl stumbled across that very same bottle.
Sarah Beth Waters was also visiting family, but hers was located in Holden Beach. When she showed her parents what she thought was something special, they were quick to dismiss it.
“I was running and I found this other water bottle on the beach because I thought it was trash and I bring over to my parents and noticed something in it,” said Waters. “And I said I think I found a message in a bottle. No you didn’t, no you didn’t.”
But Sarah Beth was right and soon enough the two 11-year-old girls began exchanging messages and texts and building a friendship their parents never thought was possible.
In addition to the extreme circumstances that led to these two connecting, their parents find it peculiar how a girl who lives in New York and visits Florida, tosses a bottle in the ocean, only to be found in North Carolina by a girl who lives in Florida.
“Found out a little girl visiting Florida from NY and then we’re from Florida but up in North Carolina visiting family. I find it absolutely crazy, absolutely crazy,” said Dean Waters, Sarah Beth’s father.
Despite the distance between them, the two girls say that they hope to meet each other in person someday.
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