Now the bottle has reached land in Germany, reports the public service broadcaster NDR .
The find was both “macabre” and “quite beautiful,” according to Holger Spreer-Wree, who found the small plastic bottle on the island of Süderoog, off northwestern Germany.
In the bottle is a note, visible from the outside, where the woman's son and daughter describe their mother as a person who loved to travel and who now gets to continue doing so through her ashes.
The children threw the bottle into the sea off the English east coast in June.
The note they wrote also included email addresses. When Holger Spreer-Wree contacted them, they said that the mother had never been to Germany and said they were happy that that item could now "be crossed off her list."
The bottle's further journey is uncertain, however. The son and daughter want it to be thrown back into the sea. But Holger Spreer-Wree does not want to throw the bottle out, as the waters around Süderoog are a nature reserve. In addition, there are a number of legal requirements for scattering ashes in the sea.
Spreer-Wree wants to mail the bottle to the children instead, so they can send it back out of the UK. But it is unclear whether German authorities will allow this or whether a funeral home will have to be involved.
