Rubber ducks spotted floating in the Pacific
 

An armada of toy ducks is expected to make landfall in Britain within weeks, at the end of an epic 11 year voyage from the Pacific Ocean.

The little yellow ducks were washed overboard from a container ship in 1992.

They have since floated round the United States, through the Arctic and past Greenland.

The remnants of the fading flotilla are now heading down the eastern seaboard of the United States, although a break away group has been spotted heading for Britain.

The American company that made the ducks is offering money to anyone finding them onshore in the US, though the offer is not being made to any British duck finders.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s910822.htm

hahahah... Thats funny.

"Hey Mommy Look! A rubber Ducky!! No... 20 of them!!"

More info at

http://www.beachcomber.org

AVON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 14, 2003--It's a boat, it's a buoy, it's a...RUBBER DUCK?! Beachgoers in New England may be spotting more than shells on the shore this summer. Any day now, a flock of rubber ducks could waddle their way onto area beaches.
The ducks have had a long journey. More than a decade ago, a container holding 29,000 of America's favorite bathtub toys fell off a cargo ship during a North Pacific storm. Curtis Ebbesmeyer, a retired oceanographer, has been tracking the plastic playthings from Hawaii to Alaska, through the Bering Strait and Arctic waters and now into the North Atlantic. According to Ebbesmeyer, some of the ducks are due to come ashore in New England, Canada and Iceland at any moment.
Avon, Massachusetts-based The First Years, Inc. - a leading maker of infant and toddler care, feeding and play products, including the famed rubber ducks - is planning to welcome the flock home with open arms. Anyone who finds one of the ducks (see image) is encouraged to call The First Years' Parents Service Center at 1-800-317-3194.
Once The First Years confirms the authenticity of the duck(s) sighting, the discoverer will receive a $100 U.S. Savings Bond. The First Years also will report the duck discoveries to oceanographer Ebbesmeyer, who will incorporate the data into his studies seeking to better understand the earth's ocean currents.

Note: A photo is available at URL:
http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/...?pw.071403/bb7

/hums the rubber duckie song

what an interesting coincidence... to think a mass of bathtoys could help oceanographers better study the ties and flows of the seas... i think silly things like these are what make our world the funy little place it is. maybe some of our north-eastern tfp'ers can make a trip out to the coast and see if they can snag a duckie. itd be a well-traveled keepsake that they can talk about for the rest of their lives.

Thats pretty funny stuff

I wonder how they all managed to stay together??

I was wondering where the hell my rubber ducky has been lately!

One interesting question......how many rubber duckies would have to land on the beaches of France before the French unconditionally surrender? My guess is any more than 4 on the same stretch of beach would lead to total surrender....here's how it would go....

first duck washes ashore..........France asks for more evidence
second duck comes ashore......France looks around for somebody to do something about it
third duck washes ashore......France denies it exists, then blames the USA
fourth duck lands.....France unconditionally surrenders to plastic toys worldwide, then condemns the USA for making plastic toys...

It's actually a pretty cool thing to me.. I wish I was on the East Coast of the US to catch one. 11 years on the ocean, think of all that has happened since then....

234234
 

how much is the reward?

Floating rubber ducks
 

I thought this was pretty crazy. 40,000 rubber ducks andother things fell off a ship in the Pacific in 1992. This guy has been tracking them, and they are about to hit ground in the UK.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp..._us_ocean_toys

jup, half of them that is, the other half went further south and are well beyond the equator already...

imagine being stranded at see on a shitty life raft and you wake up one morning to find yourself surrounded by little yellow rubber ducks.

They could never replace Wilson!

C'mon, this was no accident. The world planned this 11 years ago to insure that the future was a much more magical place to live in.

Only if it's one of those yellow inflatable ones. Then you could be king of the yellow rubber floaties.

I bet this is my old roomates work. I swear to god he had at least 100 duckies hanging around our room. All furthering his plot for world duckyation.

That would be about the point where I would question if I had gone crazy.

Yes! I can just see this hapening...

Ernie must be the happiest muppet in the world...his little bath buddy's family has come looking for him at last