Yes buoy! A piece of ocean science history caught off Newfoundland's south coast

A fish harvester in Newfoundland caught more than they bargained for near St. Jaques Island in Newfoundland's Fortune Bay this summer.

Adrift in the ocean for 64 years, the harvester recovered a drifter also known as a drifting buoy that wasreleased in the Bay of Fundy on Oct. 3, 1960.

"I think this is a pretty unusual case," said federal fisheriesresearch scientist Nancy Soontiens, who said that finding a drifter deployed more than half a century ago isn't the norm.

She said scientists would deploy the devices in the ocean and record their initial position and deployment time. After being pushed around by ocean currents, drifters would often be recovered by a person just months or even years later.

Over the years, people have found drifters on beaches in England, Irelandand Norway. Fish harvesters sometimes catch them. Other times, they end up grounded, Soontiens says.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada, also known as DFO,knows this because many of their modern devices now have an email address attached to them.

Modern drifters are also equipped with sensors to track their position over their entire history, as well as other sensors.

"Some drifters actually have temperature sensors or barometers on them so that we can get information about the sea surface temperature and weather patterns," Soontiens said. "That data is ingested into a weather forecast so that weather forecasts are more accurate than without the data."

Buoys help in many ways

Other drifters can provide information about surface currents and water levels, which informs oil spill response or electronic navigation.

"We use them to improve our understanding of the ocean circulation patterns. In turn, that information enhances our ability to predict ocean currents, which can be really important for things like marine incidents, oil spill response, and search and rescue within the ocean protection plan," Soontiens said.

Older versions of drifters like the one found this summer were more simple.

The device had a card attached, asking the finder to record its location and the date it was found and then send the card to DFO.

Some even came with a reward incentive of $1.

"The fact that there was a reward indicates to me that the scientists doing these kinds of studies really relied on that engagement with the public and the fish harvesters in order to make this program a success," Soontiens said.

There is no monetary reward for those who find drifting buoys today.

"The reward itself is connecting with somebody who's really passionate about ocean circulation," she said. "Oftentimes I'm working with a stranger who's thousands of kilometres away who is really kind of keen to learn about where this drifter came from and why it's in the ocean."

Not much data is available for the 64-year-old drifter recovered this summer.

Soontiens said the device was a seabed drifter. If they tried to draw a path between the Bay of Fundy and the south coast of Newfoundland, it would have travelled around 40 metres per day over a span of 64 years which she doesn't consider accurate.

"We certainly want more data points to improve our confidence in that estimate," she said.

For those who recover a drifter, they are more than welcome to keep it.

"A lot of times, the person who finds a drifter likes to keep it as a memento, to tell a little bit of a story," Soontiens said.

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