This Christmas, make it "Moby Duck"

My favorite thing about Christmas is the stories. To me, the holiday comes wrapped in pictures, histories, tales, and yarns just like the gifts setting under the tree. The feast begins after Thanksgiving Day as networks broadcast animated snowmen, elves, and reindeer. Classic stories like Miracle on 34th Street and Christmas Carol make the season great. Even now, when my family gets together, someone brings a Christmas story to read aloud. We tried everything from classics to limericks.

It would be nice to tell a Christmas story here at Deep Sea News. Its a challenge if nothing else. I actually had one all dreamed up, with a submarine rising from the depths with a deep coral tree in its arms, accompanied to the surface by whales and dolphins. Then my wife picked up Harpers Magazine (January 2007) with a cover story called "Moby Duck" wherein the author spins a tale of 10,000 rubber duckies spilled overboard en route from China to Tacoma.

This might be the Christmas story you're looking for. The story by Donovan Hohn reads like Santas Workshop gone haywire on the high seas, with beachcombers rescuing stranded toys, an oceanographer (Curtis Ebbesmeyer) who tracks them down, and a journalist who survived to tell the Christmas tale. The illustrations are great, too. This Christmas, I recommend Moby Duck for anyone looking to cuddle up on the couch with a story.

If you can't find a copy of Harpers you might check their website next month or introduce yourself to the saga online at the Beachcombers website.

More like this

tags: oceanography, plastic bathtub toys, duckies Have you seen one of these duckies? (May be bleached white by now). If so, please report your find to researcher, Curtis Ebbesmeyer. Image: Simon de Bruxelles. If you live in Great Britain, you could earn a £50 (US$100) reward if you find a…
Happy Winter Solstice! Gleðileg Jól! Festive Yule. I just wrote "Merry Christmas" in elvish. You see, we found ourselves in a position where we have folded four separate winter solstice festival traditions into the season, much the the delight of the munchkins. However, the Big Kid is definitely…
It's time now to talk about two of the greatest mentor figures in the literature of the fantastic. You know their stories well, I'm sure, but the parallels between them are eerie: Both are gruff but kindly mentor figures who provide crucial guidance for the young and naive protagonist of the story…
Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure. Every year for the last bunch of years I've been linking to and posting about all the "year's best sciencey books" lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year. All the…