SAANICH – Sandra says it just appeared one day.
“We saw a yellow blob across the water,” she remembers with a laugh.
Her husband Keith pulled out his binoculars to take a closer look, assuming he’d see a buoy or ball. Instead he saw a large rubber duck followed by four smaller ones.
"They’re endearing," Sandra says with a smile.
Although they’ve been floating the Portage Inlet for weeks, Keith says they don’t know anything about them: “It’s a mystery.”
So we drive to the other side of the water, start searching, and find the ducks washed-up on shore.
The not-so-feathered family are tied together and seemingly anchored to something out in the water.
We start knocking on the doors of the apartment building overlooking the water. We speak with almost a dozen of the ducks neighbours, including the property manager.
Almost everybody smiles or laughs when we tell them about the rubber birds, but nobody seems to know who put them there.
“Oh my goodness!” Sharone laughs when we show her a photo of the rubber duckies. “That’s so cute!”
The senior suggests whoever put the birds there was trying to make people happy.
“I think it’s absolutely charming, I would have done it myself," she says.
And then Sharone tells us about the swan she bought. Although she was unaware of the fake ducks, she says the neighbourhood has been mourning the recent death of a real swan that called the inlet home.
“Here is it is!” she says pulling out a box. It features a large inflatable swan, with a woman riding on its back. “If I get my hip fixed,“ she laughs, “I’m going to go in it!”
If her plan works, Sharone hopes she and her swan can join the ducks.
She hopes it will offer whoever might notice a good time.
“We need some giggles in life,” Sharone laughs. “More than smiles – giggles!”
Watch the Sawatsky Sign-Off weekdays at 6:55 p.m. on CTV News Vancouver Island
