Adrift: The Curious Tale of the LEGO Lost at Sea by Tracey Williams (2022)

It’s rare that a book scratches so many of my itches, but this book certainly did:

• LEGO bricks
• The naturalist lifestyle including beach-cleaning
• Treasure hunting including beachcombing
• Environmental awareness
• Community
• Unique photographic art
• And even some watercolor thrown in to boot

I don’t know Tracey Williams and I’ve never been to Cornwall, but I bet you we’d hit it off. Founder of @LegoLostAtSea on many social media platforms, she’s combined decades of interest in and active collection of plastics washed in from the sea to emphasize the impact that our age of consumerism has had on the ocean environment.

Specifically, this book focuses in on a cargo spill that occurred during a storm in February 1997. The Tokio Express lost 62 shipping containers, including one on its way to the U.S. containing nearly 4.5 million pieces LEGO (which ironically were mostly ocean-themed). For weeks, months, years, and now decades, people along the UK coasts and now the world have been finding bits of Lego washed up on the beaches, a situation which has turned many such pieces into prizes to be won.

The black octopus is a favorite to find, for example, as are the black dragons, scuba tanks, and tiny flippers. But the most prized find of all would be the green dragon, of which there were only 514 aboard the vessel (compared to 33,427 in black). The details of which pieces were aboard and in what number comes from a detailed shipping manifest provided by the LEGO headquarters and meticulously studied by avid fans.

One researcher who caught the LEGO wave early on was Dr. Curtis Ebbesmeyer, an oceanographer whose interest in plastic flotsam (especially cargo spills) has allowed him to accurately trace the flow of ocean currents worldwide—with the help of the beachcombing community willing to record their finds, that is.

The book chronicles many of the LEGO spill finds and offers an interesting history of the event and its aftermath, but also delves into Williams’ world of beachcombing, the calculations of her finds, and the curious collection of plastic things she’s built over the years. Understandably, this book is not for everyone and there may be some that would even scoff at a page filled with broken plastic flowers washed up from the tides and organized into an artistic display, but I’m a metal-detectorist at heart, so I can appreciate the beauty and history of what Williams sees in something most people consider trash.

This book excites me, as there’s a possibility I may move back to the area of my favorite beach in SE Asia where I had spent many an hour combing the rocky coasts and organizing beach cleanups that involved our entire community. While I don’t recall ever having found LEGO pieces there, my mind quickly flits to the countless shoes, sandals, bottles, bottle caps, fishing nets, fishing tubs, and the billions of other pieces of plastic or rubber littering the shores.

You might look at all that crap on the beach and think, “What good would it do for me to grab a bag and start picking up the trash I find at the beach?” But what good does it do to ignore it? I always encouraged my students to take a few plastic bags with them whenever they hit the beach and to fill them up with trash before they leave. If one person does this, sure, it would be a nearly pointless task. But if all the millions who go to the beach each day did it, what an impact that could have!

Granted, this approach barely scratches the surface of the real problem (all the micro plastics in the sea proper, and the constant barrage of garbage getting added to our oceans each and every day), but still. One person’s effort can impact one person’s corner of the world, and that means something.

It makes me think of the time I went snorkeling with a friend with GoPro in hand. We caught so many amazing pictures of coral and fish, yet we also caught the nightmare of what the underwater world really looks like beneath the waves. We found a crab literally stuck inside a plastic bag (which we freed), and I shot a picture of a jellyfish trying to eat another floating bag of plastic.

That venture opened my eyes to a serious problem, and while I’m no environmental activist, I certainly am a realist. If I recognize a problem and don’t do my little part to help fix it, then what does that say about my character? James 4:17 says, “Therefore, to the one who knows to do good, and does not do it, to him it is sin.” I try to do my part whenever I hit the beach, because my conscience wouldn’t let me do otherwise. I’m glad for a beautiful book like this that highlights the same going on all over the world.

This book might not be for everyone, but it was an awesome pickup for me, and one that I’ve already encouraged our local library to purchase. It’s an excellent archive of all that floats on the waves, and it would be a great gift for the LEGO or ocean lovers in your life or for your local libraries, middle schools, and high schools.

©2022 E.T.