A teenage woman threw a message in a bottle into the ocean — 7 years later, she reunited with the person who discovered it and their story went viral on TikTok

• When Anna Molinari was a sophomore in highschool, she tossed a message in a bottle into the ocean. 
• That bottle was discovered by 17-year-old Sumner Mattingly, and the 2 started corresponding.
• Molinari just lately reunited with Mattingly after not seeing him for eight years. 

TikToker Anna Molinari’s story of how she met a stranger by way of a message in a bottle has captivated hundreds of thousands who’re following alongside because the pair reunited almost seven years after they first met.

Molinari, 25, was a sophomore in highschool when she spent a semester at sea with a bunch of her classmates crusing between the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas. 

Molinari moved round loads as a child as a result of her mother and father have been within the navy, which additionally gained her a navy scholarship to the distinguished Rhode Island boarding college, St. George. However the entire transferring had made Molinari extremely shy.  

At one level through the journey, the crew grew extremely bored. “We have been out at sea for about 5 days. We had no wind, and we have been transferring tremendous slowly,” she informed Insider. 

To go the time, one of many crew members recommended the scholars make messages in a bottle. 

Anna wrote about what she had discovered whereas at sea and the way she’d grown from the expertise. They threw their bottles within the water and did not take into consideration them once more. 

Six weeks later, after she’d returned to Rhode Island, Molinari acquired a handwritten letter from a 17-year-old boy named Sumner Mattingly. Sumner, who labored as an offshore fisherman for his household’s fishing firm, Albatross Fleet in Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, had discovered her message.

Randomly, that day, Mattingly had recommended they chart the boat 27 miles off their typical course, and by probability, that had led him to find the bottle.

“He informed me the day that he discovered it, he was the primary mate on the constitution, so he was the one pulling within the fish whereas the captain drove,” Molinari mentioned. “His letter mentioned that he resonated with all the pieces I had put in my letter.” 

The pair started corresponding commonly on Fb Messenger and Instagram. Molinari considered assembly him the following summer time as a result of, because it turned out, he lived not removed from the place my mother and father had a summer time residence within the Outer Banks. “However my pals have been involved. Some have been telling me, ‘It feels slightly creepy. You can get kidnapped,’ all that stuff. I bought too scared.”

The subsequent 12 months, in 2015, when Molinari was 17, she determined she needed to meet Mattingly “for the story.”

“This by no means occurs to folks, so I’ve to benefit from it,” she mentioned.

“I invited him over for dinner with my household. I suppose he had misplaced his telephone within the water that day trigger I did not hear from him the entire day. My entire household was like, ‘he is not gonna present up.'”

Mattingly then described Molinari pulling up at her mum or dad’s home in his automobile, “barefoot, sporting board shorts, and has sun-kissed brown hair.”

“We caught up for a few hours, simply evaluating life tales and speaking about what occurred. The primary time I met him, I had a boyfriend, although,” Molinari mentioned. 

The pair stored in contact during the last eight years.

“By way of the years, we have form of all the time stored in contact by way of social media, like Instagram and Fb, however I have never been to the Outer Banks as a result of my job stored me busy.” Molinari added that being in relationships had additionally stored her from visiting Mattingly as a result of her companions would get jealous.

Earlier than she met up with Mattingly for the primary time in seven years this June, Molinari made a “prepare with me” TikTok that garnered greater than 7 million views. Many followers in contrast her story to the plot of a Nicholas Sparks novel.  

Molinari took her mother, sister, and pals out on a chartered fishing journey with Mattingly on the helm. It was the identical boat he’d been on when he’d first discovered her message in a bottle 9 years in the past. 

Molinari, now a dressmaker along with her personal model, admits it is unlikely that she and Mattingly would have in any other case crossed paths if it weren’t for the whims of the bottle. 

“We’re so completely different,” she mentioned. The place she’s moved round a lot of her life and now lives in New York Metropolis, Mattingly has spent his complete life in Cape Hatteras. “However I believe we’re each comparable in the way in which that we pursued careers doing what we love.”

“I believe it is simply actually cool that two folks from two fully completely different walks of life have been capable of join like this,” she continued.

And whereas most of TikTok is rooting for the 2 of them to finish up collectively, Molinari is trustworthy that she does not know the place the connection will go.

“It’s totally a lot open-ended. There isn’t any finish by any means proper now,” she mentioned. For now, “it is a reminder that these amazingly cool coincidences and surprises can nonetheless occur in life.”