A Duck's Odyssey

[franceslievens]

In January 1992 28.900 plastic toys (rubber ducks, turtles, frogs and beavers) got lost in the Pacific Ocean. Now, 15 years later, they're still floating around somewhere. Curtis Ebbesmeyer, a retired oceanographer, has made it his goal to find them all and thus understand the currents and movements in the big oceans.

Under the cut you'll find the travels of a couple of rubber ducks. (Image snagged from De Standaard.)



Some helpful translations:

1. 1992: 29.000 rubber ducks fall off a containership travelling from Hong Kong to the U.S.A.
   
   
2. The rubber toys need six years to travel the circle trajectory of the Subpolar Gyre.
   
   
3. A couple of toys get trapped in the pack ice through the Bering Straight. They get carried towards the Atlantic Ocean.
   
   
4. 2003: A rubber duck washes up on the East-coast of the U.S.A.
   
   
5. 2003: A faded frog shows up in Scotland.
   
   
6. Summer 2007: They expect toys on the coast of Southern England, Southern Ireland and Scotland.

Any of you living or holidaying in the neighbourhood who finds a plastic turtle, frog, beaver or duck can report it to Curtis Ebbesmeyer via his Beachcombers' Alert.