THE BBC is using a high-tech version of messages in a bottle to let viewers contact the stars of the documentary Castaway 2000.

The Beeb is inviting people to send e-mails to the volunteers marooned on the Hebridean island of Taransay as part of a year-long experiment.

The "letters" will be hand-delivered by members of the programme's film crew when they return to the island.

Replies will be posted on the Castaway website, and viewers will also be able to download video footage of a flight over Taransay and the castaways' selection procedure. Nigel Chapman, director of BBC Online, said: "The Castaway 2000 website responds to viewers' thirst for more information on the experiment, and the great interest shown in the programme since it was first broadcast on our screens at the beginning of the year.

"Visitors to BBC Online can enjoy an exclusive insight into life on the island, bringing them closer to our volunteers without intruding on them and ruining the original intention of the experiment.

"I'm sure that Daniel Defoe and Robert Louis Stevenson, if they were alive today, would have done exactly the same."

Since the original Castaway programmes were first shown over the Christmas period, the volunteers have scarcely been out of the news.

In addition to its current features, there are plans for the new Castaway site to broadcast video diaries from selected members of the community.

The last in the current series of Castaway 2000 is on BBC1 tonight at 9.30pm.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/castaway2000/