Daphne the Missing Duck May Be Finding Her Way Home

SYDNEY — Though a beloved member of an Australian swimming club, Daphne has a less-than-athletic figure and usually prefers bobbing gently in the water from the sidelines.

But this month at her club’s annual ocean swimming competition, Daphne, a huge inflatable duck, was blown out to sea by a strong gust of wind and, despite a rescue attempt, was quickly dragged out into the vast Indian Ocean.

Her disappearance left the nation asking, Where is Daphne?

“After 50 meters she was just gone, baby, gone,” Peter Marr, the club’s president, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation of his effort to swim after Daphne, who was supposed to be the event’s star attraction. “I couldn’t keep up.”

The club appealed for help on Facebook in its search to find Daphne. Anyone who had seen the giant rubber duckie mascot, and could help with her safe return, would be offered a small reward, the Cockburn Masters Swimming Club wrote.

But Monday, Marr confirmed that Daphne was no longer missing and had been rescued at sea. He said he had made contact with her rescuer and, after a scheduled meeting with him Wednesday, hoped to get Daphne back to where he said she belonged: at home on Coogee Beach, in Perth, in Western Australia.

Her rescue came after Daphne’s fate made headlines around the world and the rounds on social media.

At one point, she was rumored to have been seen 400 kilometers, or about 250 miles, from where she took off at Coogee Beach.

He said Daphne was found by a fisherman 30 to 40 kilometers, or 20-some-odd miles, west of Rottnest Island, just off the coast of the city of Perth.

“Apparently she’s in fairly good condition,” Marr said of “Daph,” adding that the fisherman “seems like a reasonable bloke.”

Although Marr said the fisherman who found Daphne posted a ransom for the duck, he hoped that with a small reward their meeting would be amicable, and that the rubber duck would be returned to its rightful owners.

“Daphne has brought more to the event than I ever thought she could,” Marr said of the swimming competition.