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Alaska Beachcombing

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Glass float fact:

Today most of the glass floats remaining in the ocean are stuck in a circular pattern of ocean currents in the North Pacific. Although the number of glass floats is decreasing steadily, many floats are still drifting on these ocean currents. Occasionally storms or certain tidal conditions will break some floats from this circular pattern and bring them ashore. They most often end up on the beaches of Alaska, Washington or Oregon in the United States, Taiwan or Canada. It is estimated that floats must be a minimum of three years old before washing up on beaches in Alaska. Most floats that wash up, however, would have been afloat for 10 years.

Alaska Beachcombing

Part of the bounty of a mornings beachcomb - Dan Michels
photo There are many places to go and find great beachcombing. What are we looking for? Shells, driftwood, interesting rocks, bones of giant sea mammals, antique artifacts and detritus from around the Pacific Ocean that washes up on shore. This is pure kids play and everybody loves it!

A real treasure to find are the round, hand-blown glass floats, antiques formerly used by Japanese fishing vessels to float their nets.

Most floats were made in Japan or Korea 30-60 years ago, and are shades of green because that is the color of glass from recycled sake bottles (especially after long exposure to sunlight). However, clear, amber, aquamarine, amethyst, blue and other colors were also produced.

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