It seems there was a case of a fish, we mean duck, outta water in Alpena. The World's Largest Rubber Duck was landlocked for the recent Festival of Sail leaving Michiganders shouting "Free the Michigan Rubber Duck".

In May it was announced that the infamous Mama Duck, billed as the largest rubber duck in the world, would be making an appearance at this year's annual Festival of Sail Alpena. The duck weighs in at 31,500 pounds and measures 61 feet high and 79 feet long. It's one BIG DUCK, and people were excited to get a glimpse at the big yellow girl chilling in Lake Huron, but that's not what they got.

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The website for the event promoted that the duck would "fly the coop and turn Lake Huron into her own personal bathtub". What attendees found instead was the World's Largest Duck living life as a landlubber. The duck was not in the water, yet sitting on the ground dockside and tied down positioned next to a building. Not exactly duck-worthy accommodations to say the least. 

Although Mama Duck travels in a semi-truck, she usually ends up frolicking in the waters of her destination. I took a look at pictures from her other appearances throughout the country and like the website says, "the world is her bathtub". She appears to spend most events in the water where a duck belongs, so why not in Alpena?

Attendees took to social media to voice their frustration over the whole "duck outta water" thing, with one even going as far as to say the whole event was lackluster.

"Darn Rubber Ducky! He’s getting a bad break"

 

"They charged $60 for fast pass tickets to just get on the boats quicker and walk around it even though there were no lines. The duck was not in the water as advertised, they had like 2 vendors a lemonade stand. You could walk it within seconds. They also didn’t have any beer garden and removed all the event details from the website which used to say it".

 

"Free the Michigan Rubber Duckie, iykyk"

While we weren't able to find any information as to why Mama Duck enjoyed her stop in Alpena basking on shore, I'm sure there's a good reason.

The duck will be back in Michigan for another appearance in August at Marquette’s Mattson Lower Harbor Park, along Lake Superior, from Friday, August 12th through Sunday, August 14th. Maybe this time you'll catch her in her natural habitat...the water.

LOOK: Here are the 50 best beach towns in America

Every beach town has its share of pluses and minuses, which got us thinking about what makes a beach town the best one to live in. To find out, Stacker consulted data from WalletHub, released June 17, 2020, that compares U.S. beach towns. Ratings are based on six categories: affordability, weather, safety, economy, education and health, and quality of life. The cities ranged in population from 10,000 to 150,000, but they had to have at least one local beach listed on TripAdvisor. Read the full methodology here. From those rankings, we selected the top 50. Readers who live in California and Florida will be unsurprised to learn that many of towns featured here are in one of those two states.

Keep reading to see if your favorite beach town made the cut.

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