If you’re on the shores of Alaska and happen to see a rubber duck wash onto shore, it’s not a prank or strange coincidence. It’s actually part of a global phenomenon that has since been forgotten by many. In 1992, a crate fell overboard from a ship on its way to the United States from Hong Kong. The contents? 28,000 plastic rubber duck toys. Over twenty years later, some of these ducks are still floating around in the ocean. They have been found all over the world from Hawaii to South America, to the Pacific Northwest. Some have been frozen in ice, while others have washed onto beaches.
There is even a group of followers, the “Friendly Floatees”, that devote themselves to tracking where these rubber ducks have floated to. To this day, there are 2,000 of the toys that have remained close together, caught up in the currents near Japan and southeast Alaska, called the North Pacific Gyre. This situation has even helped scientists understand more about ocean currents and pollution.
For those enthralled by the displacement of bath toys, there is a book by Donovan Hahn that chronicles the story of these 28,000 rubber ducks, entitled Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28,000 Bath Toys Lost at Sea & of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists, and Fools, Including the Author, Who Went in Search of Them.