Duckrace

Last May, I went to a duckrace in the village of Borve, 17 miles from here. This weekend, one competitor in a duckrace on a slightly larger scale made landfall at Traigh Uige on the western coast of Lewis. It was a plastic frog. The frog had reached the end of a 14½ year journey around the world. What had happened?

It was a dark and stormy night back in January 1992 when a container ship, en route from Hong Kong to the USA, ran into trouble in the Pacific Ocean. As the ship rolled violently in heavy seas, several of the containers tipped into the sea. 

At least one of the containers burst open and one of the world's great journeys started for around 29,000 plastic bath toys. The thousands of yellow ducks, blue turtles, spinning red beavers and green frogs set off on a long voyage that was to see them become unwitting celebrities – providing scientists with a heaven-sent opportunity to see how the ocean currents of the North Pacific really work.

BBC Radio 4 will feature this story next Saturday (29 July) at 10.30 BST. Check the BBC Radio 4 website (www.bbc.co.uk/radio4) nearer the time to see if  you can get a live feed. If you're outside the UK, please bear in mind the time-difference (5 to 8 hours if you're in the USA). Some programs can be played back after the time of transmission.

I should add, for those that cannot get Radio 4, that the toys floated through the Bering Straits between Russia and Alaska, into the Canadian High Arctic. Then down the seas between Greenland and Canada and finally into the Atlantic. Some of the toys have ended up on shores of the eastern USA. And now one has reached the Hebrides.