A very strange incident occurred in the Pacific Ocean in the year 1992. A cargo ship sailed towards America from Hong Kong. While travelling through the Pacific Ocean, near the Hawaii Islands, a container full of toys fell into the ocean and broke. Around 28000 rubber toys started floating on the ocean. This incident occurred on 10th January 1992. Now a strange thing happened. After around 10 months, on 16th November 1992, some of these toys reached the coast of Alaska. Some of them crossed the Bering Strait and moved up to the Arctic Ocean by the year 2000. Some of them also floated to the Atlantic Ocean from the Arctic. Some of these reached the eastern coast of America in 2003 and some of the toys had even reached the European coast by 2007. From the Hawaii Islands, some toys took the route to Australia! See figure 5.2 and 5.3. Why did the toys travel in this way?

The toys travelled in this pattern because of the movement of ocean currents. Ocean current is a permanent and continuous movement of water in the earth’s oceans. The ocean water consists of two layers- surface water and deep sea. The surface currents and surface circulation account for only 10% of the movement in oceans. It is the deep water circulation that constitutes for the rest 90% of the movements in the oceans.

Ocean currents can either be towards the north or towards the south. They flow from the equator towards the poles or from the poles towards the equator. The currents from the poles are generally cooler, while the equator has warmer currents. The ocean can also have massive loops of water, generally called as gyres. They are generally found in the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Indian Ocean.

The tides, gyres, and waves superimposed on the ocean currents are responsible for the movement of water and the toys in a circulating manner.