Ocean currents and friendly floatees

Friendly Floatees are plastic bath toys marketed by The First Years, Inc. and made famous by the work of Curtis Ebbesmeyer, an oceanographer who models ocean currents on the basis of flotsam movements including those of a consignment of Friendly Floatees, containing 29,000 plastic yellow ducks, red beavers, blue turtles and green frogs, washed into the Pacific Ocean in 1992.

Some of the toys landed along Pacific Ocean shores, like Hawaii. Others traveled over 17,000 miles, floating over the site where the Titanic sank, and spent years frozen in Arctic ice to reach British and Irish shores 15 years later in 2007.

Curtis Ebbesmeyer

Eric Carle wrote a children’s book 10 Little Rubber Ducks inspired by the Floatees (Harper Collins 2005, ISBN 978-0-00-720242-3)