High-ranked among Uncle Al's endlessly implausible peccadilloes is the archetypal message in a bottle tossed into the ocean. Is the rest of the world really out there, including People Not Like You And Me? Ya gotta look. Thus it was, through labyrinthian ratiocinations, that Uncle Al needed a liter of real seawater. This is irksome in North Dakota but OK in Irvine, California.
A loaded and sealed champagne bottle (no Chermat/metodo Italiano process glassware here!) weighs almost a kilogram. It floats 90% submerged, net buoyed by the displacement of its glass volume. Crown cap neck seals require work to survive 100 years of sun and salt water. Saturated styrene/ethylene-co-butylene/styrene Kraton G-1562 thermoplastic elastomer boosted with a weathering package is witchcraft. Unleachable phenolic antioxidant Irganox-1010, hindered amine antioxidant Chimassorb 944, and UV-absorber Tinuvin 328 feature prominently here. Seal volume being small, the cost of exotic survivability is reasonable.
300 such bottles weigh an aggregate 630 pounds and occupy about 20 cubic feet crated. This teaches us that cruise ships will be hesitant to receive, transport, and string out the load in the Drake Passage between Tierra del Fuego and Antarctica. Pity. The operational alternative is an impact-extruded 250 ml aluminum bullet bottle: 1 mm wall, 50 mm diameter, 185 mm height, 24/410 cap. 200 of them plus their aluminum screw tops ship in a 21x18x16 inch3 case weighing 18 lbs. Unlike glass, the whole aluminum bottle slowly corrodes in seawater. An economic surface survival test then requires test coatings, a volunteer bullet bottle, a hacksaw, a Victoria imported Greek pepperoncini in vinegar marinade glass bottle plus lid, a roof, two or three years... and a liter of seawater. Here we go.
Wednesday and Thursday 0830-1230 hrs celebrate a Balboa State Beach jackbooted State compassion parade. A vast armada of superfast citation-trained traffic fuzz fans out before mammoth nuclear-powered street sweepers. No Parking! on alternate sides of the street. There is always sand in the gutters and nobody knows how it gets there.
High autist Uncle Al, who cannot tell left from right short of a polling place, is particularly inept at parallel parking's spatial intricacies. In some 30 years he only managed three first try insertions:
Seawater inventory was churning like a distant Orange Julius dispenser. There was lots; a liter would never be missed. I had carefully packed a plastic bucket and an empty alcohol bottle, for consumer goods were unregulated though glass was forbidden on the beach. The EPA allows dipping into a natural water body with a stainless steel pail. Subsequent discharge of defined industrial waste is a $10,000/incident-day fine. The only lawful way to dispose of the excess is to drink it.
Between desire and acquisition there lay a deep wide monstrous field of the nastiest siliceous particulate matter I had ever seen. It had "pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis" written all over it. Oh for a bunny suit and respirator! I proceeded with anguish and dismay. People close to the water suffered their clothing apparently blasted from their all but naked flesh. They were lying comatose or writhing upright in their skivvies. There was no wind - I hurried lest I be flensed and shriven. My chemical boots were up to the task.
As Tantalus was tortured by food and drink so the ocean offered temptation without satisfaction, rolling back as I approached. Was I too adjudged guilty of cannibalism, human sacrifice, and infanticide? Infants are icky. Then, the maelstrom pursued me.
I might not be here today if my trusty bucket had not swallowed the malodorous saline reachings of a ferocious planet. My bucket was engorged and I retreated in the gap. I filled my alcohol bottle, torqued on its cap, and poured remainign excess liquid non-industrial waste upon granular dregs surrounding all. The seawater hissed on contact. Deviltry!
The water heater vent through my garage roof now secures the test volume and its container. Coated aluminum tabs are immersed in oceanic ichor bent on their corruption, plus an uncoated control in the jar. Control samples were safely tucked away cool, dry, and in the dark. The cover was screwed down tight, its seam strapped with stretched vinyl electrical tape, covered with folded aluminum foil, and that set at its waist with two plies of taught nylon line. Nothing gets in but sunlight and heat, nothing material gets out.
I lay awake at nights, fancying I hear muffled bubbly moans. Therein languishes a lesson for all when mettle ends up in their glass.
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