by Francesco Lolli

N 44° 42′, E 178° 06′. Or simply a lost spot in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Here the January 10^th 1992 the cargo ship ”Ever Laurel” wich sailed from Hong Kong was headinf to Tacoma (US) lost a container of 30 000 plastic floating animals meant to bob in the bathubs of American childrens.

We don’t know if the container opened in the fall or in the deep of the ocean but somehow these coloured animals made it to get out and free themselves from the boxes, and started their journey trought he seven seas.

At the beginning this ”Friendly Floaters” (is the name of the brand) splitted in 3 main groups, moved by streams, and took 3 diffenents directions: Some of them headed to Alaska while a second ”expedition” moved to south following the cold waters and get the direction of Australia and Sud America.

The first colored toys were found one year later (1993) on the shores of Alaska after a 11000 km long travel and local newspapers started talking about the unusual finding of them all over the coast of the country. This story attracted the oceans expert Curtis Ebbesmeyer when few months after the same objects were found in Japan, Us and in the following years in Australia and southern countries as well.

Knowing the number of them, the coordinates and the day of the accident and the number of reports form all over the world gave a chance to experts to track a new map of sea steams, timing and directions, so far that Ebbesmeyer had to say ”Is amazing what a duck can tell you”. And also show resiliance and resourcefulness.

Ten years after some yellow ducks have been found in Ireland and UK and after also in France, meaning that they fount their way to the Atlantic Ocean and their personal way trough the ices of the Artic and, how we sadly know, the plastic wich are them made will make them live and sail for centuries, but luckilly this way allowing scientist to keep studying the movement of the waters of the Planet. Plastic is anyway nowadays everywhere in the ocean, and a main problem that will stay until we fix what we have done and we stop polluting waters.

Lots of these toys are still missing: some for sure joined the island of trash floating in the pacific wich is bigger than France (in extention), while others are still somewhere following their path in a story become legend.

The money valour of one of these ”travellers” is estimated to be for collectors of more than 700 Dollars now and this journey, started -to remember- with an enviromental accident like thousands of others allowed anyway to study seas and inspire as well, showing what such a little object made throught the world. This journey became inspiration for movies, books and new researches: NASA, to honor this ”expedition” used coloured plastic ducks as marker to sign the moving of Greenland melting ices.

This story became with an accident. One of many that are destroying the seas and became viral thank to the work of the journalist Donovan Hohn and useful to the world thank to the efford of people like Ebbesmeyer. Remember us again tht all of what we left in the seas slowly will come back to us and maybe will make us give a second look to our shores next time we will walk trough them, looking for a yellow duck that crossed the world.