When Zoe Lemon was 10-years-old, she wrote a message, put it in a bottle, and cast it into the ocean off the coast of eastern England.

In 2013 the same girl, now 33-year-old Zoe Averianov, received a reply to her bottled message, 23 years after she sent it, the Daily Mail reported.

A man discovered the bottle while walking his dog in the Oosterschelde dykes of the Netherlands, more than 350 miles away from the coast of Hull, England where Averianov sent the message. The man, Piet Lateur, and his wife answered the letter from 10-year-old Zoe Lemon, and sent it to her parent's house.

"It's been a bit crazy really," said Averianov, who is now married with a 5-year-old son, the Daily Mail reported. "My parents came to visit on Christmas day and they had this letter from Europe addressed to my maiden name, Lemon."

Averianov instantly recognized her old letter.

"The first thing I saw was my handwriting as a child and my little letter saying who I was and about my pets and my hobbies. It made me a bit emotional," Averianov said, according to the Daily Mail. Her hobbies at the time were "ballet, playing the flute and the piano."

Averianov, who works in a jewelry shop, was surprised at how well preserved her message was. She threw the bottle into the water on her way to Germany during a family vacation.

"My dad has been looking at pictures of the area where it was found online and it looks as though there is a cove, so it could have been bobbing around there for years," Averianov said, the Daily Mail reported.

Lateur and the grown up Lemon now keep in contact via email.

"I am keeping your little letter on my piano," Lateur told Averianov, the Daily Mail reported. "I know you are no longer a little girl but you asked me to write you so I have."

Pictures of young Zoe Averianov and her letter here.