We’ve been researching some Tiree history this week. In 1930, Mr William Van Elen (an American) was on his way home by ship travelling from France to New York. Whilst on that long sea voyage and at the mid Atlantic Ocean, he was curious when ship crew told him about the “Gulf Stream” and that most things ended up in Scotland if put overboard.
Curiosity got the better of him, so he scratched his address on a ship’s menu, put it in a sealed bottle and when nobody was looking, threw it overboard into the invisible “Gulf Stream”.
In February 1932, some two years later, he was astonished to open a letter at his New York home from ‘Millport House’, Isle of Tiree confirming that the bottle had been washed ashore on Tiree’s western beaches. Reckoning the bottle had travelled nearly 2,000 miles. Leaving no doubt that the Gulf Stream does indeed terminate at Scotland’s Western islands.
