Rubber Duck Odyssey

Shamelessly copied and pasted from Skynews

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Hundreds of rubber ducks are expected to appear off the coast of Cornwall - having been afloat at sea for the past 15 years.

The wayward bath toys have covered 17,000 miles since they accidentally fell overboard in the Pacific Ocean during a storm in January, 1992.

They were among a consignment of 28,800 plastic ducks, beavers, turtles and frogs that were being taken from Hong Kong to Washington State in the US.

Seattle oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer has been monitoring the toys as a means of mapping ocean currents.

He is interested to see where they come ashore, with some of the toys apparently having reached the east coast of America.

The Daily Express quoted him as saying: "It's now inevitable that they will get caught up in the Atlantic currents and will turn up on English beaches.

"Cornwall and the South West will probably get the first batch of them."

If a toy is returned to the manufacturer the finder can claim a £50 reward.

But the ducks are far more valuable if they are sold privately as curiosity items - fetching up to £1,000.

The plastic animals have already reached places as diverse as Indonesia, Australia and South America.

But Alaska has proved a popular washing up point for the washtime toys.

Between 1993 and 2005 Alaska residents Dean Orbison and his son Tyler collected 121 plastic animals as they came ashore near the city of Sitka.