In May of 1990, the cargo ship Hansa Carrier was hit by a severe storm during its voyage from South Korea to the United States. In the middle of the tempest, a large wave swept 21 shipping crates into the sea, five of which contained Nike shoes.

About six months later, a dedicated beach scavenger named Steve McLeod spotted a clump of Nikes while walking along the Oregon coast. Then another. Then several piles of the gleaming, plastic footwear. Soon, McLeod's Cannon Beach apartment was packed with several styles and sizes of Nikes, each of which he carefully cleaned, dried, and de-barnacled. There was only one problem: the vast majority of the shoes were left-footed.

This phenomenon attracted the attention of local scientists working to decipher the Pacific's ocean currents. With the help of Nike and the Hansa crew, they determined that the shoes had not been connected during their ocean voyage. Furthermore, the slight toe curvature of the right-footed shoes caused them to tack northeastward into the Alaska Current, while the left-footed Nikes slid neatly into the southeast-bound California Current. Thus, for months, a small physical difference forced each shoe farther and farther away from its mate.

Once Steve McLeod had put these pieces together, he began contacting other known scavengers for news of another Nike windfall. Sure enough, he heard about a large number of shoes that had beached to the north along the Queen Charlotte Sound. A meeting was arranged and, in one day, 1,200 pairs of Nike tennis shoes were re-united using serial numbers. Once the pair became whole again, it went home with whomever it fit.