Voyagers in the Atlantic

MUCH LARGER OBJECTS than bottles are floating around in the northeastern Pacific Ocean these days. A container vessel which suffered an engine room fire during an early December storm also lost approximately 30 containers overboard, some of which may still be drifting in the ocean. The Cypriot-flagged ship, Hyundai Seattle, lost its engine following a fire in an exhaust funnel and drifted helplessly for two weeks in heavy seas until it was taken under tow on Christmas Eve. The ship was located about 500 miles south of the Aleutian Island of Adak, according to reports. Floating containers in that area would almost certainly drift slowly toward the northwestern coast of North America.