Then on May 1, he received a Facebook message. And then another one. And they kept coming. “I don’t know how many people I’ve been tagged by, even getting messages from people who were my mates six or seven years ago,” Shields said, laughing. “And they were all asking the same question. ‘Hey, is this you?’ And I said, ‘Yes, yes it is!’” The float had been found, and the person who found it was trying to get it back to its rightful owner. But the buoy didn't wash up just up the coast from Wanchese, the homeport of the 46-foot Hard Way, which long-line fishes for tuna and other fish in the warm waters of the Gulf Stream off North Carolina's Outer Banks.