In 2018, a family found a bottle partly exposed in a dune near Wedge Island, Western Australia. Inside was a tightly rolled German form dated June 12, 1886, thrown from the barque Paula as part of a German Naval Observatory study of ocean currents. Museum researchers authenticated the bottle and matched its coordinates to the ship's meteorological journal. It probably washed ashore within about a year and spent the rest of its long disappearance buried in sand—less a 132-year voyage than a very delayed check-in.