Sending a message in a bottle is seen as something only castaways and the wrongly imprisoned do as a last ditch effort to be saved, but in reality people most often stick notes in bottles and toss them into the sea for fun.
And while none of the senders actually expect to receive a response to their letters many of the bottles sent off are actually found by people like Wim Kruiswijk of the Netherlands, who has found over 1,200 of them so far.
Wim has been collecting bottled messages since 1983, and apparently the Netherlands' Zandvoort coast is a prime spot to find stuff washed up on the shore because that's where Wim has found his entire collection.
This short documentary by Great Big Story profiles Wim and his interesting hobby, and even though it's not profiled in the video the local museum in Zandvoort also has an interesting collection of stuff people have found on the beach.
-Via Boing Boing