Texas father and son discover message in bottle on Gulf Coast

Markus and Gabriel Hogue were searching for seashells last weekend when they discovered a message in a bottle washed up on the Padre Island National Seashore. (Courtesy of Markus Hogue)

AUSTIN (KXAN) — A father-son duo from Central Texas can add “treasure hunters” to their list of accolades, after discovering a message in a bottle washed up on the Padre Island National Seashore last weekend.

Markus Hogue and his 12-year-old son, Gabriel, were looking for seashells for Gabriel’s mother and girlfriend, Liah, on the beach when they saw the bottle protruding from a pile of debris.

“We were walking and saw a lot of debris and then a bottle and were surprised when we picked it up and saw a note inside,” Markus said. “(Gabriel) thought it was full of sand, then we started looking more and realized it wasn’t English – where did it come from?”

At first, Gabriel thought it might be some sort of miniature map. Then he saw seahorses and other designs on it and his mind drifted elsewhere: a possible treasure map.

Markus and Gabriel have traveled the country searching for treasure on trips, finding gold coins and bottles full of sand in the past. But a real message in a bottle? That takes the cake, says Gabriel.

The two men waited until their meeting with KXAN on Thursday before opening the bottle. How, exactly, did they maintain this kind of patience and resilience?

“It’s everything you want in a little bottle, just looking at you,” Gabriel said.

For Gabriel, this delayed unveiling is best described as “pain.” Markus added that he not only wanted to commemorate the moment on camera, but also consulted UT experts on ocean currents to find out where it might have come from.

Katherine Strickland, UT Libraries’ card coordinator, joined the Hogues and KXAN Thursday for the big reveal.

After breaking the bottle, Markus undid two pieces of paper. The first was a map of ocean currents, while the second was a letter written in Spanish to someone’s daughter, telling her how much they loved her and would never forget her. On the front of the letter there was a telephone number.

After the first attempted phone call went to voicemail, Markus received a call back from a woman in Colorado Springs, Colorado. She said her parents went on a Caribbean cruise last year and received a message in a bottle kit to send; they chose to write him a letter with it.

Strickland said ocean currents circulating in the Caribbean were moving north and likely carried the bottle along Central America and Mexico to the Gulf Coast before depositing it at the Padre Island National Seashore.

The letter’s intended recipient said the Hogues could keep the letters to themselves. Markus said he was going to frame the two pieces of paper as a reminder of their travels and their journey together – treasures worth more than gold.