Four years ago, a small boat was sent off to sea by the Summit-Questa Montessori School in Davie.
On Monday, it washed up on the shore of a South Carolina beach.
The boat’s incredible voyage from Davie to South Carolina has been impacted by everything from hurricane-force winds to ocean currents north of Bermuda. The original destination, however, wasn't anywhere in North America or the Caribbean.
"It was supposed to go to Ireland," said Krista Sallop, an administrator at Summit-Questa.
Although it didn't wind up in Europe, the boat's journey is going viral on social media. The Edisto Beach Police Department posted images of the teal-and-white vessel on their Facebook page, garnering more than 1,000 shares and 5,000 reactions.
“This small boat washed up near beach access 24 this morning,” George Brothers, the chief of police, wrote on Facebook. “I can’t imagine where it has gone in that time!”
Sallop said the boat -- dubbed the "S.S. Upper" -- was created by students at Summit-Questa in 2012 as part of a program called Educational Passages. The program allows students across the country to track the location of handcrafted mini-boats via a GPS system.
Local
While the project stemmed from the Davie school, the boat wasn't launched from Fort Lauderdale Beach. Atlas Obscura reports it was originally launched just north of Bermuda -- along with four other mini-boats -- to help propel it toward Europe.
Then, a storm happened, and the fleet of boats changed course. Soon after, they wound up in South Carolina.
Dick Baldwin, founder of Educational Passages, reportedly said his team was able to recover four of the boats, but never found the S.S. Upper. Turns out, the Upper had been discovered by someone else and was up for sale in a Charleston thrift store.
Luckily, one of Baldwin's friends came across the boat for sale and contacted him. A new GPS system was installed in the boat before it was launched out to sea for a second time, in June 2017, according to the report.
That's when the three-foot long boat washed up on the shore of Charleston and was found by the Edisto Beach Police Department.
The department said the boat included a letter which stated it was a 5th grade class project from Summit-Questa Montessori School in Davie. They notified the school to let them know they recovered the boat.
The school eagerly responded on Facebook with their own post:
“Summit-Questa’s Montessori’s boat has resurfaced!” they wrote. “Check out the link! It’s going viral.”
Sallop said the boat's journey has received a strong response on social media, prompting the creation of the Facebook page "The S.S. Upper."
"We saw so many responses, we decided to keep [the story] up," she said.
On Wednesday, the police department posted a follow-up on the boat's journey, writing:
“The boat will be re-launched tomorrow by a ship leaving the Charleston harbor. The boat will be taken out to sea and launched so that it can begin its next adventure.”
