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In January of 1992 a container ship called the Evergreen Everl

left Hong Kong bound for Seattle to Coma. In the Northern Pacific it hit rough seas.

Not exceptionally rough, but the North Pacific and winter is always pretty rough

and the waves and conditions were stormy enough that 12 containers fell overboard.

Donovan Hone is a writer.

Out of one container, there emerged boxes and out of the boxes,

there escaped packages and those packages, each one contained four

bath toys.

These toys were blue turtles, green frogs, red beavers, and yellow rubber duckies.

And there are more than 25,000 of them.

Collectively, they became known as the friendly floaties, and they floated across the ocean

for years, some traveling distances of 17,000 miles.

When Donovan learned about them more than a decade after the original spill,

he became completely fascinated.

And just the image of containers falling overboard, of the toys going adrift.

I just wanted to imagine it.

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