By Gretchen Keiser

You’re walking along a lonely stretch of beach and up ahead you see an old bottle that has washed up on the shore. Who doesn’t stop for a moment and wish that, just like in the stories, there’d be a note inside from a stranger across the ocean?

It must have been something like that in early March for an Irishman named Cornelius Bohane, who was walking on the southern tip of Ireland near Baltimore in County Cork. He came across an old champagne bottle and, inside, found a message from a boy in Stone Mountain, Georgia.

The boy was Ryan Cody, 12 years old, the younger son of Dan and Chris Cody from Corpus Christi parish. Two years ago, in June 1983, while on a family cruise on a Carnival ship in the Caribbean, Ryan took part in a pastime for the younger ones on the cruise. Then 10 years old, he wrote a message with his name and address on it, put it in a champagne bottle and tossed it off the top of the ship.

“I thought it might just sink,” said Ryan, who is now basking in a wave of newspaper and television publicity. Instead, Ryan noted, “My grandfather and Dad said it (the bottle) must have traveled 4,000 miles” from a spot in the Caribbean near Puerto Rico to the tip of Ireland.

Not only did the bottle survive the two-year trip, but the note from Cornelius Bohane, who found the bottle in early March, arrived in Georgia the day after St. Patrick’s Day.

“If we had mail delivery on Sundays, we would have gotten it on St. Paddy’s Day,” said Chris Cody. According to Mr. Bohane’s note, he lives in Skibbereen, which is a city north of Baltimore. He also returned Ryan’s original message from the bottle, which was yellowed, but otherwise undamaged by the sea voyage.

According to Carnival cruise lines, it’s the first time the bottle project has ever brought back a letter, so they’ve invited the Codys with their sons, Ryan, and Danny, 15, on a free cruise next March for St. Patrick’s Day. They’re also inviting Mr. Bohane and three of his family members to take part in the cruise so the two families can meet.

Ryan is now waiting for an answer to his return letter to “Cornelius,” informing him about the cruise and all the fanfare that his letter provoked. He’s also coping with the pressures of fame, which have included an appearance on television news and in the Atlanta Constitution and an opportunity to tell his sixth-grade classmates at Immaculate Heart of Mary school in Atlanta, about himself during “current events” time in class.

Still he seems to be keeping his perspective.

“I’m just so thankful that it happened and we got a free cruise,” he said.

Right afterward, Ryan said, his mother sat down to read a daily Bible reading that they have been looking at together during Lent. The message for the day was, “God makes everything happen at the right time,” said Ryan. “Me and my Mom started reading it and she just started laughing.”