When Max Glaskin threw a Coca Cola bottle with his parents name and address inside into the sea he never expected to see it again.

But 21 years to the day after he threw it off the coast of a remote, uninhabited Scottish island, he was astonished to receive a phone call from a woman who had found it floating in the water.

Even more bizarre was the bottle, far from floating thousands of miles to foreign shores, had gone just a few miles from the Isle of Lunga to the neighbouring Isle of Mull.

Max, 48, of Jew Street, Brighton, said: I was totally shocked to hear from a woman claiming to have found my message. It was a weird way of the past revisiting me, but very exciting too.

Id like to say I planned it all but I dont think anyone would believe me.

Max was a struggling science researcher accompanying a wildlife photographer on a week-long otter spotting expedition when he threw the bottle.

While on the island Max found himself incredibly bored as his photographer friend was busy snapping away and he only had a group of puffins to talk to.

Deciding to make contact with the outside world, he wrote a note asking the receiver to contact him and sealed it in a plastic bag along with an envelope with his parents Devonshire address written on it.

He stuffed the bag into the bottle and ran towards the shore, threw it into the ocean and watched it disappear in a few moments, leaving himself and the puffins to boredom again.

Max returned to the mainland, forgetting all about his aquatic communication.

Now a successful science writer and father-of-two, Max was reunited with the bottle on American television station NBC after a Scottish woman found it floating in the sea.

Kate Jackson, 48, was on holiday with a friend on the Isle of Mull when they decided to go beachcombing to see what treasures they could discover.

Kate noticed the Coca Cola bottle bobbing in the water and returned to their cottage to prise it open.

Upon finding Maxs enclosed note she tracked him down straight away. In another bizarre coincidence Max discovered he knew Kates best friend, who lives in Woodingdean.

But something even more unusual was about to happen.

They received a call from NBC asking them to appear on national TV.

They were flown to New York for filming where they were put up in a trendy Manhattan hotel and given the star treatment.

Max said: It was a bit daunting having 100 American housewives as a live audience but fantastic to see my bottle again after all these years.

I am hoping to be taken to New York again in another 21 years so Im throwing bottles off the pier daily.