Can I track any bottle?
This website follows bottles registered with its unique bottle numbers. A personal bottle with no record here cannot be located through the service.
How bottle tracking works
A bottle number connects the physical bottle to its journey page. The map and status describe recorded events, helping you follow the places where someone has reported that bottle.
How the number keeps a journey together
The same number stays with a bottle when it is registered, tossed, found and retossed. That gives each report a shared home instead of leaving separate stories with no connection.
On a public journey page you can see the available starting information and recorded status. Open the interactive journey below the summary to explore its reported events.
What the statuses mean
- At sea: the record shows a departure, with no later recorded find that changes its status.
- Found: someone has reported discovering the bottle.
- Back at sea: the record shows that the bottle was retossed after a discovery.
Why the map does not move every day
The bottle has no live GPS transmitter. A new point appears when someone submits a location, so the displayed location is a recorded event rather than a continuously measured position.
If nothing new has been reported, the website cannot determine the current location, exact route, or whether someone found the bottle without reporting it. A long wait between updates is possible.
Reading dates and distances
Journey dates come from the recorded activity available to the website. Older records may have less detail than a recently registered journey.
A displayed distance summarizes the recorded journey. It should not be read as a precise measurement of every turn the bottle took between the reported locations.
Your questions, answered
Why does a bottle show only one location?
There may only be a starting report, or limited information in an older record. More locations depend on additional reports.
How do I add a discovery?
Use Report a found bottle and enter the verification details from the bottle. Viewing its journey page alone does not record a discovery.