Back in January of 1992, a cargo ship carrying plastic bath toys ran into rough seas in the Pacific Ocean. As the ship rolled with the storm, three 40-foot-long containers fell over the side, setting 30,000 of the colorful, plastic animals free to travel the world’s ocean currents. (See our previous coverage of the incident here.)
Since that storm in ’92, American researcher Curtis Ebbesmeyer has been tracking these “Friendly Floatees,” and he expects to see thousands of them make landfall on the shores of Britain soon. This is quite remarkable, considering it’s been over 15 years since they were first dumped into the ocean. In that time, they’ve “crossed the Arctic Ocean frozen into pack ice, bobbed the length of Greenland and been carried down the eastern seaboard of the United States,” according to the Times Online.
If you happen to locate one of these sun-bleached world travelers, the American distributer of the rubber toys, The First Years Inc., is offering a $100 reward per duck. However, if you’re lucky enough to run across one, your reward may be larger if sold to a private buyer as “the ducks have become collector’s items, changing hands for £500.”