On 10 January 1992, during a storm in the North Pacific Ocean close to the International Date Line a container ship lost twelve containers. One of these containers held 28,800 Floatees, a child's bath toy which came in a number of forms: red beavers, green frogs, blue turtles and yellow ducks. At some point, the container opened (possibly due to collision with other containers or the ship itself) and the Floatees were released. Although each toy was mounted in a plastic housing attached to a backing card, subsequent tests showed that the cardboard quickly degraded in sea water allowing the Floatees to escape. Unlike many bath toys, Friendly Floatees have no holes in them so they do not take on water.
Ten months after the incident, the first Floatees began to wash up along the Alaskan coast. Thereafter, they have at different intervals landed in various places around the world on a journey which took them through the Bering Strait, where they got trapped in ice and made a slow journey across the pole.
The bath toys have been very useful for scientists modelling the ocean currents. After some years the bath duck story began to appear in newspapers and the original manufacturer began to offer a $100 US savings bond as a reward for anyone recovering one. Bleached by sun and seawater, the ducks and beavers had faded to white, but the turtles and frogs had kept their original colours.
The title of this blog refers to this story for a number of reasons. First of all, I love weird stories and I intend to bring some of them up from time to time. Second, there is a science link in the story and I'm a big fan of proper science. Other than that there will be some personal stories, some economics, some general stuff. I hope you like reading it.
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