One of the most famous beachcombers in the world has been put on the case to find out where the large logs that have been washing up in Bermuda have come from.

If anyone can get to the bottom of the mystery then American Curtis Ebbesmeyer is surely the man.

He is famed for hunting down the origins of all manner of objects that get washed up in the unlikeliest places around the world, including the bizarre occasion when 28,000 plastic toys were lost overboard from a container ship in the mid-Pacific Ocean and many were later washed ashore in Alaska ? some riding the ocean currents for up to 12 years before reaching shore.

This time it isn?t a bunch of plastic frogs, turtles and ducks that Mr. Ebbesmeyer has been asked to investigate ? it?s the large bits of lumber that have been found bobbing in the shallows around Bermuda that need to be explained.

Following report about a number of logs ? some up to 75ft long ? being found in the water and beaches at North Shore, Fort St. Catherine and St. David?s over the weekend, keen beachcomber Judie Clee contacted us to say she had written down details from a small brass tag she?d found attached to the log that washed up at Clearwater beach.

She said: ?We found the log at Clearwater had a brass plate nailed to one end and we took a note of the tag. The log is still there but the tag has now been taken off by someone.

?We?ve been in touch with Mr. Ebbesmeyer in Seattle. He tracks items that have gone overboard at sea. On Sunday I sent him the lettering on the tag and he?s trying to find out where it has come from.

?He thinks that the lettering on the tag may indicate it came from Johannesburg in South Africa.?

She is waiting to hear more from Mr. Ebbesmeyer as he attempts to track down the exact identity of the log and how it came to be lost at sea.

Last night Mr. Ebbesmeyer told that the tag read ?JHB E-O5 OFC 160? ? and he is currently working on the theory that JHB stands for Johannesburg and OFC may represent the Ontario Forestry Canada, which would suggest the pole was being exported from Canada to South Africa when it fell off a container ship.

The arrival of at least three logs around Bermuda in the past few days might indicate a number of these poles have been lost at sea in the region, possibly during the rough seas caused by Tropical Storm Philippe last week.