Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea & of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists & Fools Including the Author Who Went in Search of Them

What worlds lie within a rubber duck? To discover the answer read Donovan Hohn's, Moby Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea and of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists, and Fools, Including the Author, Who Went in Search of Them. I did and loved every word.Hohn takes us on several journeys, both interior and exterior, as he follows the trail of the bath toys, called Friendly Floatees, which plunged into the northern Pacific Ocean from a container ship one stormy night (or maybe day)in January of 1992 and floated away into the annals of history and myth. He stumbles on the story late one night while grading a paper for project he'd assigned his high school journalism class based on James Agee's concept, the archeology of the ordinary. Hohn writes, "If like Agee my students could learn to study a thing--any particular thing--`almost illimitably long,'...they too might begin to perceive `the cruel radiance of what is' rather than the narcotic shimmer of what isn't. Or so my hopeful thinking went."Prone to nighttime flights of imagination, intrigued by the quixotic rubber ducks that float from the Pacific Ocean, through the Arctic into and the Atlantic, Hohn pictures a flotilla of cheerful yellow duckies bobbing to the surface mid-Pacific,and fanning out as far as the eye can see. It is a charming image; he is hooked. After some research and phone call to the oceanographer who had been tracking the movements of the toys, he opens his atlas, puts his finger on the coordinates of the cargo spill and conceives a plan to travel in search of the elusive toys, which he's discovered are plastic, not rubber, and not only ducks but frogs, beavers, and turtles. More importantly, he's found that there were no confirmed Floatee sightings in the Atlantic. Thoroughly obsessed, he sets out to discover as much of the truth of the toys as he can, and to turn his "map into a world."In pursuit of answers Hohn travels to Seattle where he interviews a retired oceanographer who writes parodies of Sherlock Holmes stories in a self-published newsletter, Beachcomber's Alert, to Alaska where he participates in a project to airlift tons of plastic litter from an isolated stretch of coastline on the Kenai Peninsula and is made to quack like a duck in a shady bar, to the Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch on a catamaran trawling for plastic debris and to China's Pearl River Delta Economic Zone where he visits the factory in which the Flotees were made. He crosses the northern Pacific in winter on a container ship passing close to the very site of the toy spill. He journeys into the North Atlantic aboard a research vessel deploying instruments in the Labrador Sea and embarks on a scientific mission aboard the first icebreaker ever to transit the entire Northwest Passage in early July.As Hohn chases his image of happy duckies a-bob on the sea, it takes on some disturbing implications. With him, we learn of the plight of the Laysan Albatross, "the world's most voracious palstivore." We learn about the chemistry of plastic, and how the vast amounts we put into our oceans concentrate deadly toxins, moving them through food chains. We discover the six degrees of freedom that ships experience, and the staggering cost in human lives the shipping industry claims each year. We learn about labor practices in Chinese factories, the rise of the toy industry and the vagaries of global consumerism. We plumb the histories of American environmentalism, arctic exploration and the changing social perceptions of childhood.Hohn masterfully weaves these diverse subjects together into a cohesive narrative told with dazzling images rendered in sparking prose. He makes us care about the plight of the Laysan Albatross, among other things, by bringing his subjects alive, focusing his clear eye intently, minutely on his surroundings and by setting the larger story of the Floatees against the backdrop of his personal experience. We see him racing to uncover flotsam mysteries in Alaska while hoping to get home for the birth of his first child. He writes as compellingly about taking a walk with his toddler along the Hudson River as he does about standing on the Arctic icecap.With Moby Duck, Hohn achieves beautifully, what he hoped his students would. He studies an ordinary object `almost illimitably long,' embarking on a journey of discovery, and I gladly followed his travels as he pursued the `cruel radiance' of rubber ducks with insight, humor and the unerring eye of a consummate storyteller, thus turning his map--indeed--into a world for himself and his readers. I look forward to his next book, which I hope will be about tweezers, cotton balls or bubble gum--or some other equally ordinary thing.

Donovan Hohn is new to me, and immediately joins the very small set of writers (John McPhee, Adam Nicholson, Barbara Kingsolver, Ian Frazier...) that merit an "automatic buy" of any non-fiction they write, literally even if the title be: "Toe-Jam."[Update: I still haven't finished this book, having elevated it all the way to bathroom book, to prolong it longer: 20 minutes per day is a lovely dose. I'm realizing the author is more sly than he presents himself, but at this point I'm willing to forgive him anything.But sly? At one point, a team he's with want to use ATVs to move several tons of collected plastic garbage across a wild, beautiful Alaskan isthmus so that it can be safely removed by boat. They're forbidden because archeologists complain that the ATVs might damage spruce trees that were "culturally-modified" by the ancient Unegkurmiut people. The team members rant on about how Spotted-Owl-ridiculous this all is, and make jokes about doing some "cultural modification" of trees using their chainsaws. Hohn opens the next paragraph discussing the Stockholm Syndrome, and how people tend to sympathize with the people they're with, but the rest of the paragraph is a description of the Unegkurmiut people, how utterly central the spruce trees were to their existence, and how future archeologists would curse the cleanup crew with the same breath used to curse Schliemann if their ATVs dragged garbage through the area. Sly.Right now he's addressing his lifelong fear of water after watching "Jaws" at summer camp, and wondering if he has not somehow transmitted his fear into his young son by telepathy. At the same time he's also describing the run-in he's having with a certain recently-famous Alaskan governor, who vetoed funding for beach cleanup on State land because ... well, Alaska didn't PRODUCE the garbage, so it's not responsible for it...]None of the other reviewers mention, but Hohn is also a genuine lover of words. Shortly after he boards a ferry for Alaska, we get: "I stand at the taffrail and think to myself 'taffrail,' enjoying the reunion of a thing and its word." That occurs on page 51, and I immediately relaxed into the book and literally put my feet up, secure that I was in the hands of a fellow-spirit.Of course the story isn't about rubber duckies: the ducks are simply the fulcrum he places his lever on, the MacGuffin. He brings himself along as well: far better than dispassionate, invisible observer, he slips just a little of himself into the story, somewhat like John McPhee in The Control of Nature standing on a vibrating lava tube, looking down a hole onto the red flow itself, and admitting a fear-thrill a clear order of magnitude greater than any other in his life.Hohn knows his science, but doesn't lord it over us; you get the sense of discovering things along with him. But perhaps the greatest joy of the book is how much a student of human nature he is. He's the sort of person who sits in a railway carriage and actually looks at the other people present, observes them, converses with them out of interest. I don't care who you are: you will learn plenty, reading this book.

When I first heard about this book I immediately downloaded it onto my Kindle. Who could resist the story of 28,000 polyethylene bath toys falling into the drink from the three-story height of a cargo ship during an Arctic storm in 1992? I needed to read the book in smallish doses and an ebook wasn't the best way to do it. I wanted to go back, forward, re-read passages without getting lost, slosh around in the story the way the ducks (who weren't made of rubber) floated around the various oceans of the world. I wanted to underline in pencil, carry it around until the pages were salt and cappuccino-stained. The way I imagine my book would look if I were really with Donovan Hohn on the beaches of Alaska, Hawaii, or in a boat on the North Pacific. I'd even enjoy his company in the Arctic. But paper, ebook, or oral tale, the story compels.Hohn became obsessed with tracing the sea-going course of the lost toys. Specifically, rubber duck icons of ageless nostalgia. The beginning of his journeying couldn't have come at a more inconvenient time, as he and his wife were soon expecting their first child. But the pull to untangle the mystery surrounding the spill and the occasional appearance of a toy thousands of miles and years away, were too strong to ignore. Most people dream of secret adventure, but how many of us actually manifest it? He did. And along the way got involved with a cast of diverse characters and facts. He wrote: "I was improvising, surrendering to happenstance, riding the drift, and with every passing day the drift was leading me into wilder waters". In his hands, the quest becomes universal and accessible to us.I looked forward to personal narrative as a diversion from the information-packed story. I'm not a scientific type and there were times when my mind wandered and I skipped ahead. It was as if the facts sometimes got caught in eddies of thick seaweed. I longed to rake it away and release them, but Hohn is a wise writer and did it without my help. And the information was still there if I wanted it.In spite of adventure, back breaking work (literally in Hohn's case), references to Moby Dick, and clear details, what hovers like a silently gathering tsunami is the treachery of tons of zombie-plastic in the waters of our planet. What remains in my mind, besides the eternally mythical bobbing ducks, are images of baby seabirds ingesting what will kill them, pristine beaches become garbage dumps, remote seas swirling with the world's disposables. This book is a good read and may become the wake-up call we need.

After finishing Moby-Duck by Donovan Hohn I give it 5 Rubber Ducks. Perfect stocking stuffer for the Good Morning Gloucester Friends of Rubber Duck (GMGFORD). A spellbinding journey that leapfrogs (see green frogs below) across the world searching for the illusive Rubber Duck. The Gloucester Bookstore and Toad Hall in Rockport have been told to stock this book.First the technicalities: On the night of January 10, 1992, an enormous container ship from China, crossing the north Pacific, ran into a storm and eventually lost several tractor trailer sized containers to the sea. This actually happens quite often and some people get their kicks hunting down Adidas sneakers, or the ten thousand catcher’s mitts or hockey sticks that bob to the surface after the ocean pops the container open. But on this Friday night the cargo was 7,200 cartons of bath toys containing a green frog, a blue turtle, a red beaver, and, wait for it, a rubber duck (This makes 28,800 floating bath toys.). But forget those other toys, we focus on the 7,200 Rubber Ducks. These Rubber Ducks are just like the GMG Rubber Duck. Born in a blow mold in China. Our Rubber Duck made the trip safely much earlier. Her container ship pulled into Seattle in 1984, was offloaded to a truck destined for Shelcore Inc in Somerset, New Jersey. It then was sent to a novelty shop on Cape Ann where David Platt of Rockport purchased it to decorate the bathroom. For fifteen years Rubber Duck left a sheltered life before she met Homie the Seagull down on Granite Pier and we all know where that part of the story has ended up …But back to the roaming 7,200 rubber ducks. Donovan Hohn read an article about them and the search for information took over his life from 2005 to 2008. One month he would be pulling a red beaver off the beach of an Alaskan Island, the next month he would be on an ice breaker travelling the northwest passage above Canada. Along the way Donovan learns a lot about ocean currents, maritime regulations, the weather, the climate, the sailor Ishmael of Moby Dick fame, as well as how to be a father.He meets a lot of people, most of whom think he is a bit daft, “Has thou seen the White Whale?” “Has thou seen the Rubber Duck?” A page turner to the end, you will find yourself a bit more knowledgable about the ocean after having read it. Do you know about the great gyre, the garbage patch, swirling in the Pacific to the North of Hawaii? I thought I did but was surprised that the real floating dead zone of plastic is much different than what is reported. Hohn brings no agenda to his search for the Rubber Duck. He started with a simple question, did a Rubber Duck really go through the Bering Strait, up over the Northwest passage, and land on a beach in England? In the end, it isn’t the answer, but the journey that matters, and we all learn a lot by tagging along.

In fiction, particularly in film, a MacGuffin is a plot element which seems to drive the plot forward (a rare diamond, perhaps, because the main characters are chasing after it); but in reality, the MacGuffin used to get the reader into the story loses its importance as the story goes on, because the story is really about deeper, more meaningful concepts: love, glory, sacrifice, truth, and so on. Alfred Hitchcock is credited with making the concept of this mechanical plot device popular. In fiction.With Moby-Duck, we enter the world of nonfiction. Here, a reader's expectations (at least my expectations) are different. If the author is writing about the Abominable Snowman, for example, he or she had better stay focused on and provide a lot of information on and insight into the topic. Or, he or she should make it clear up front that the book is not really about the Abominable Snowman at all: it's just a collection of thoughts. Some abominable, some not.The subtitle of Moby-Duck, printed large on the front cover, is: "The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea and of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists, and Fools, Including the Author, Who Went in Search of Them."Well, that is simply not what the book delivers. First of all, none of the beachcombers, oceanographers, or environmentalists mentioned in this book went in search of the bath toys. No. They were all doing something else, and the author bummed along on the trip so that he could search for the bath toys. Second of all, this is NOT the story of the bath toys lost at sea. That's what it promises to be, but it isn't. Instead, it is 400-plus pages of the thoughts and observations of the author, Donovan Hohn. While I like many of his observations, particularly the ones he relates to American literature such as Moby Dick, the fact is that I as a reader am not there for these observations. I'm there for the ducks, of which we get precious little.To bend over backward and be ultra-fair to the author, I will say that even if I had never expected this book to be about the rubber duckies, and had always expected it to be the observations and ramblings of the author, I would still give it three stars. It's just not that interesting. Yes, the oceans and the currents and ecology and the horrible use of the oceans as a dumping grounds for trash, all of these are serious concerns. But the way the author presents them, they seem like ramblings, not like analysis and not like a call to action. I was disappointed.

The title seems to tell it all but it neglects just one or two items – like the hilarity, the quirky literary allusions, the deep dives into science, the Ahab-like insanity, and the tension between adventure and domesticity. Don Quixote meets Rachel Carson meets Captains Courageous meets Do De Ducky with Ernie. Not to mention Melville. And plastic.Donavan’s hunt takes him on all manner of watercraft – catamaran, container ship, sailboat, icecutter –off the coast of Alaska, Hawaii, and up in Baffin Bay. He gets access as a helper, a journalist, or just an observer, and with each trip meets a team of colorful characters. He even goes to China to see how the toys are manufactured.The book tells you a lot about plastic ducks, but what I loved were the literary riffs. The Anecdote of the Jar by Wallace Stevens seemed to me a fitting image for how human jetsom transforms the seas (though it was about the land of Tennesee). In the epilogue, Donovan takes a scholarly look at the role of fatherhood in Moby Dick. The final scene shows Donovan and his young son throwing pinecones into the Hudson. Father and child imagining where the pinecones might go was the perfect fantasy ending to these real and fantastic adventures.

I am reading Moby-Duck, by Donovan Hohn. I find it quite interesting and informative, especially on the topics of ecology and ocean currents. When I started making notes of pages that had bits of information and quotes I wanted to reference later, I did not expect the large volume of references I would find. About half the pages have something. One quote I especially like is, "Why do we like to walk on the beach?...all the cells inside our bodies realize they're close to their mom." This is from Curtis Ebbesmeyer, retired oceanographer, in Seattle, Washington.As an amateur beachcomber (I do it because I love it,) I was fascinated with Moby-Duck because there were explanations of the movement of flotsam and jetsam on the ocean waves and currents. I have never read any other account that explained how and why things drift to their landing places. In Moby-Duck I found there even is a publication about beachcombing--Beachcombers' Alert! published by Curtis Ebbesmeyer.Book review readers will likely know by now that the theme of Moby-Duck is an account of part of a shipment of plastic bath toys broken loose from their bindings and catapulted into the Pacific Ocean during a dramatic storm, January 10, 1992. They were in huge containers, 8 feet wide by 20 or 40 feet long. At least one container burst in the crash, the rubber toys spilled into the sea. The story tracks the routes of winds and ocean currents that move water and materials around in the oceans.Along with the bath toys, I read about shipments on other ships that break loose and crash into the deep--shoes, sneakers and sandals, computer monitors, things that float. "Ghost nets" were disturbing. They are high-seas drift nets, 15 miles long! Broken loose from fishermen, these nylon nets roll up into a huge ball, tangling animals, catching on coral reefs, killing anything in their paths.I learned about chemicals that break down from lost or discarded items floating in sea water, and what they can do to plants and sea creatures. I was disturbed to find that beach clean-up operations get grants from polluters like BP, Chevron, or Dow Chemical. These grants give a positive twist to the corporate reputations while nothing is done to stop the pollution they cause.Oddly enough, half way through the book, the bath toys were taken off the market, after they were found to have a high level of lead. On investigation, Hohn found that it is up to the manufacturers to make sure a toy is safe, the government agents find out about the problems later. The vast majority of toys found in US stores are made in China, in sweat shops. Shouldn't we have some suspicion about the quality of what we get from such sources?I have not finished reading the book yet. I'll keep reading it. It is like no other I have found. I don't expect a solution to the problem of pollution of the oceans, but an education is helpful.

For an object as benign and nostalgic as 28,800 rubber bathtub toys to become the objects of a world-wide hunt into where they went after falling overboard in the North Pacific, more than mere nostalgia has to be at work. The author helps clean the beaches of Alaskan islands of tons of floating trash, watching at all times for one of the escapees, goes to China's manufacturing heartland to see it and other bath toys made, crews on a sailing vessel through the Garbage Patch of the Atlantic - one of several worldwide, does his bit on an ice-breaker research vessel in the Arctic, revealing more about this planet than perhaps you wanted to know.The book was so well-written I was curious to reach its end and read his acknowledgements ... oh, a writer for Harper's, the New Yorker, and other big guns. No wonder the prose rolls and flows, no wonder so much fascinating (and scary) information is packed into 'Moby-Duck'.Highly recommended reading ... and re-reading.

Voici un livre que devraient lire tous les ministres de l'environnement et les industriels. Quand je vois l'état de nos plages biarrotes, je ne peux que comprendre cette enquête.

I loved it, such a great writing.

Essentially interesting book marred by bad writing. I can't believe the author taught English and is now an editor. Worth struggling through though.

What a title - and what an amazing story. All credit to the author for tackling such an intriguing story. I'd like one of those ducks in MY bath.

Did they ever find all 28'800 bath toys ?Worth a read if you have an interest in oceanography, the environment or need a home a few pub quiz questions.and for the environmentalists extremists, well here is something else to be angry at