Message in a bottle tossed off Calif. pier found in Guam

In 2010, a Utah woman who was battling brain cancer put a note in a wine bottle and tossed it off a California pier. It was found last week by a group of high school students who were cleaning up a beach — in Guam.

"I totally forgot all about it," Brittanie Penrose, now 27 and cancer free, told the Pacific Daily News.

Penrose was on a date with Aaron Lanari in Oceanside, Calif., when he surprised her with the bottle, and encouraged her to write a note.

"I just thought it would be a really great date idea," Lanari said. "I gave her some paper and I said 'Write whatever you want.'"

Lanari wrote his own note and put it in the bottle, too.

The bottle was discovered Thursday by Javier Sanchez, a 14-year-old student, on Boonie Beach Road in Talofofo, Ipan, roughly 6,200 miles away from the Oceanside pier.

Sanchez and the students broke open the bottle and discovered the notes from Penrose and Lanari. The teacher who organized the cleanup posted an online video reading Penrose's note.

"Hello, my name is Brittanie," Penrose wrote, describing her battle with cancer and encouraging whoever found the bottle to "find me on Facebook." She also left an email address.

Lanari's note included lyrics he wrote for a song: "When intelligence is ignorant and empathy is absent, death and hate are present when joy and love are abstract."

He said he was equally surprised to hear the bottle washed ashore in Guam.

"I hope they don't prosecute us for littering," he said.

Guam students open the bottle containing Penrose's note. (Deseret News)