AN "armada" of 10,000 yellow plastic ducks is about to land in Britain after an incredible 14-year journey across the oceans.

The bathtime toys fell off a container ship in the Pacific in 1992 and, after drifting thousands of miles, are due to start washing up on our shores soon.

To add to the excitement, the ducks have a worldwide cult following and can change hands for as much as £1,000 a time.

Scientists monitoring ocean debris say the duck armada has hit the Gulf Stream, which circulates warm water from the Caribbean to Britain, and is about to start drifting across the Atlantic.

The ducks are expected to start bobbing up on the British coast some time in the next year.

The ducks started their incredible journey from a factory in China, before they were loaded on to a ship heading out across the Pacific.

In a freak storm in the middle of the huge ocean near the International Dateline, a giant container carrying 29,000 bath toys was washed overboard and broken open 4,000 miles into its journey to Tacoma, Washington state.

During their first three years at sea the toys completed one 6,800-mile orbit of the Pacific Gyre, a current which circulates around the edge of the ocean - passing through the waters of Indonesia, Australasia, South America and Hawaii - at the rate of seven miles a day.