Boy finds 1997 ‘Holy Grail’ Lego piece after years of searching

A 13-year-old beach kid discovered the “Holy Grail” of Lego pieces that washed ashore after a 1997 spill. , which collected nearly 800 Lego pieces that fell into the sea from a container in 90s, finally found the rare plastic octopus after two years of searching.

Speaking to the PA news agency, he expressed his delight at finding the elusive octopus, one of nearly five million Lego pieces that washed into the sea when a cargo ship ran into a storm in 1997. Lego Merchandise it included 352,000 pairs of flippers, 97,500 scuba. tanks and 92,400 swords, but octopuses are the most sought after items as only 4,200 were on board.

Liutauras, who lives in Cornwall, revealed that he regularly visits local beaches with his parents and collected 789 Lego pieces over two years, along with numerous fossils. The young man discovered the octopus on a beach in Marazion, Cornwall.

His father Vytautas Cemolonskas, 36, told the PA: “We’ve been looking for that octopus for two years, it’s not easy to find. We didn’t expect to find it at all because it’s very rare.”

“I was interested in archeology as a kid, and later Liutauras started doing (beachcombing), so we always did it together as a family.”

Liutauras is now on a mission to find one of the 33,941 dragons lost at sea after an accident in which 62 cargo containers fell into the water during a storm 20 miles off Land’s End, Cornwall.

Tracey Williams, a beachcomber, is the driving force behind the Lego Lost At Sea project, which has located the plastic pieces since they washed up in the ocean years ago.

Speaking to the PA, she described it as “quite exciting” when a second Lego octopus was discovered just two days after Liutauras’ discovery, this time in Porthleven.

“I think that’s because we had a really big spring tide, coupled with strong onshore winds, and when the two collide, the waves eat into the dunes, which then releases a lot of plastic that has been washed away,” he explained she.

“I think there’s something quite magical about octopuses. They’re often seen as the holy grail of discoveries in that shipping container.”

Ms Williams started collecting the Lego pieces near her parents’ house shortly after the accident and “forgot about the story” until she moved to Cornwall in 2010 and started finding them again.

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“I found an octopus in 1997 and didn’t find another for 18 years,” she said. “People like to find a bit of Lego when they clean up on the beach and many see it as a reward for all the hard work they put into cleaning up the beaches.”

Ms Williams conducted research into the cargo spill and wrote a book, Adrift: The Curious Tale Of The Lego Lost At Sea, about the incident. She also manages popular social media profiles that showcase the finds of toy scavengers.

“I’m recording where it all ends up, so we’re working on a map that will be part of a scientific paper to show how far the plastic is from a cargo spill and what happens to it over time,” he explained she. “What we would like to know is if those containers still exist or if they have long since rusted away.

“I mean, it’s intriguing to know what happened to the rest of the Legos that we’ve never seen. There’s so much cargo spilled every year, but you rarely hear what happens to the goods inside, and what we know from The Lego Story is that the 27-year-old plastic that was in that shipping container is still being found.”

She described the cargo spill as “part whimsical, part doom-laden.” The hobby of collecting Lego “started as a bit of fun and gradually opened my eyes to how much plastic was in the ocean,” she noted.

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