64 years at sea? Surprising recovery made off coast of Canada island, officials say

Anglers usually become the butt of jokes when they catch a buoy, but one very unusual case of bad fishing is being celebrated in Canada.

“A drifting buoy was recently recovered by a fish harvester south of the St. Jacques Island, in Newfoundland and Labrador — turns out, it’s been drifting through the ocean for 64 years!” Fisheries and Oceans Canada wrote in a Sept. 23 Facebook post.

“It was determined that the drifter was released on October 3, 1960 in the Bay of Fundy, and has been traveling the ocean ever since!”

The Bay of Fundy is along Canada’s North Atlantic coast, just east of Maine.

It’s roughly 555 miles southwest of St. Jacques Island, which means the buoy didn’t get far over those 64 years. A little math reveals it traveled a rather pathetic 8.6 miles — per year.

Government officials did not offer an explanation for the bad mileage, but social media commenters speculated it could be a case of the buoy washing ashore, then washing back out to sea, over and over and over again for 64 years.

Some anglers joked the discovery also gave them hope their lost fishing equipment might eventually be found.

The disc-like device is part of the country’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission’s Global Ocean Observing System, which measures surface conditions and current. The program dates back to the 1920s.

This story was originally published September 24, 2024 at 6:21 AM with the headline "64 years at sea? Surprising recovery made off coast of Canada island, officials say."