Message in a bottle sent from Lewes found 17 years later
Mark Sucoloski is a Nashville singer who spent summers as a kid at his grandparents’ house in Lewes with his siblings and cousins.
He still comes to the First Town in the First State to perform, most recently July 2 at Stango Park under the stage name Mark Taylor.
Now, a small Gatorade bottle with a note inside is giving Sucoloski and his family 15 minutes of fame beyond Lewes and the capital of country music.
Faith Blaney, who lives in Carroll County, Md., recently posted on Facebook that she found the bottle when she was cleaning out her late grandmother-in-law’s kitchen cabinets. A note and a dollar bill were still inside.
She said her grandmother-in-law Nancy Belbot found it in 2012, when she was sitting with her niece and sister on the beach at 58th Street in Ocean City, Md.
“I remember she was so happy when she found it. It made her whole week. She said she had found a treasure,” Blaney said. “I can’t believe she still had it.”
Blaney then turned detective. She posted pictures on Facebook, hoping to track down the family who sent the bottle on its nautical journey.
It did not take long.
Members of the Sucoloski family, siblings and cousins who were there when the bottle was set loose started posting their own messages, amazed that their treasure had been found.
“I just heard about it when I got off a plane from Ireland [Aug. 12] and started getting texts and messages on Facebook,” Mark said.
He said it all started 17 years ago when he and his cousins found another message in a bottle washed up on Lewes Beach, near their grandparents’ home at Bay and Massachusetts avenues.
He said they were inspired to drop their own into the waters of Delaware Bay.
“I remember the kids writing the note like it was yesterday,” said Janet Sucoloski, the mother of Mark, Annie and Caroline, three of the names written on the note.
Janet said that first bottle they found only contained a store receipt, so she wanted them to write something more personal and offer a treasure.
“I think their pop-pop donated the dollar to put in,” Janet said.
The note is dated July 17, 2007, and has the names and ages of her three children and their four cousins who were all there on that beach vacation.
“They always went to Lewes Beach at sunset with their seining net and kayak. That’s what we did,” Janet said.
She said she told the kids not to add their last names or address, so their identities were a mystery for years.
Mark, who was 7 at the time, said he and his cousin Ryan jumped in their kayak at sunset, paddled into the bay and dropped the bottle a few hundred feet out, hoping it would wash up on Lewes Beach.
“I never thought that little bottle would make it so far down the coast and touch so many people,” Mark said.
Where are they now?
The Sucoloskis’ grandparents no longer live in Lewes. Janet said many of the family members live in the same ZIP code outside Baltimore.
She said her daughter Annie is a lacrosse player at Drexel University in Philadelphia and Caroline just graduated from Elon University in North Carolina.
Mark, aka Mark Taylor, will be back in Lewes to perform at Canalfront Park Thursday, Sept. 19.
