Hampton, New Hampshire (WGNO) – A beach discovery by a man on vacation in the Turks and Caicos Islands put a smile on one woman’s face–and put $150 in his pocket.

Clint Buffington, a musician and writing teacher from Utah, was walking along one of the dozens of beautiful beaches that are part of the British territory that sits southeast of the Bahamas when he found a bottle buried in the sand, with a note inside.

According to a report by CNN affiliate WMUR, Buffington says the note read: “return to 419 Ocean Blvd. and receive an award of $150 from Tina, owner of the Beachcomber.”

He chose to follow the waterlogged but still readable clues to solve this beach mystery and then flew across the country to return the note to the daughter of the man who wrote it more than five decades earlier.

The words on the note referred to the Beachcomber Motel  in Hampton, New Hampshire–owned by Paula Pierce’s parents during the 1960s.

The story, reported by CNN, says that Pierce says her father threw the bottle into the Atlantic Ocean as a joke decades ago. Her parents have since passed away, and the Beachcomber Motel that they owned has been sold. But–true to her father’s word–she gave the man who discovered the sandy treasure his reward: $150.

“This is special because it brings back a piece of him, a piece of her, a piece of my childhood, a piece of the Beachcomber,” says Pierce.

There are lots of colorful stories about messages sent out to sea and recovered years later–in fact, there’s even a blog on the topic. Click here to read more.