Google Search easter egg celebrates ship getting freed from Suez Canal

Kyle Bradshaw | Mar 29 2021 - 3:17 pm PT

Over the past week, the eyes of the world have been on the Suez Canal, which has been blocked closed by a single ship, the Ever Given. Now that the Ever Given has been freed from the Suez Canal and the global trade route reopened, Google Search has joined celebrations with a new easter egg.

If you haven’t kept up with the bizarre series of events that began last week in Egypt, the short version is that a heavy-laden container ship, Ever Given, managed to run aground and essentially get lodged sideways in the Suez Canal. The canal serves as a shortcut from the North Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean, often trimming many days off a voyage versus going all the way around Africa’s southern tip, making it a critically important route for ships.

With Ever Given firmly stuck in the canal, ships began to pile up in the Suez Canal, waiting for the container ship to be freed, a process that was said could take as long as weeks. After days of excavations, Ever Given has now been properly freed from the Suez Canal.

To celebrate the resumption of the global trade route, Google Search has launched a simple new easter egg. When searching for related terms like “Suez Canal” or “Ever Given,” you’ll be treated to a simple animation of ship emojis sailing by underneath the Google Search bar.

The timeliness of this Suez Canal easter egg suggests Google may have been planning this particular bit of fun for a few days. For now, the easter egg seems to only be appearing on the desktop version of Google Search, not the mobile web or app.