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Hi there,
What is beachcombing?
What is beachcombing?
Beachcombing is where you walk a beach looking for treasures that have washed up onto shore. The water gods love to wash treasures onto beaches. Whether it’s a beach on an ocean or a beach on a lake or bay, there is always something to find!
Here is a list if things you might want to look for.
Number one for us is old glass fishing floats, next is everything else you can imagine. Fishing floats made of plastic, Styrofoam, wood. Seashells, netting, driftwood, bottles, toys , money, lumber, rope, life preservers, boats, urns, pottery, crab pots, clothes, shoes, TV’s(no good) light bulbs, ships wheels, shipwrecks, channel markers, mooring buoys, tennis shoes, oyster baskets, fishing bins, crab gear, etc.
Here is a list if things you might want to look for.
Number one for us is old glass fishing floats, next is everything else you can imagine. Fishing floats made of plastic, Styrofoam, wood. Seashells, netting, driftwood, bottles, toys , money, lumber, rope, life preservers, boats, urns, pottery, crab pots, clothes, shoes, TV’s(no good) light bulbs, ships wheels, shipwrecks, channel markers, mooring buoys, tennis shoes, oyster baskets, fishing bins, crab gear, etc.
How to find glass floats and other floats!
Floats are where you find them. Finding glass floats today is 90% luck and 10% skill. You have to be at the right place at the right time. I have beachcombed with my family since I was 3. Over 35 years. I have found lots of floats over the years but it took my wife Tina almost 10 years to find her first glass float since we have been together. Most the time the best place is where others are not so willing to go. Remote beaches with little or no access to them. We have walked 3 miles into beaches, that not to many people are willing to do in the summer, but we go in the winter in a rainstorm. Good rain gear is essential!
I keep good track of tides and winter storms. High tides are best because vehicle and foot traffic is less and most floats come in at high tide during the last hours surge. I keep track of where low pressure storms come ashore and which way the wind is blowing. The center of a low pressure storm on the Washington, Alaska and Oregon coast is always the hotspot! Watch the weather reports! They will show you where the storms are going to come ashore. This makes the most of your time beachcombing. If there is an offshore flow, stuff just isn't going to wash up. But if there is an onshore flow for more than 72 hours then the small floats will start showing up. If you start finding styrofoam floats, light bulbs, plastic and glass bottles you are in the right area at the right time. Small glass floats come within 12-24 hours of the styrofoam and plastic.
Best places on a beach are where there might be a river, stream, or entrance into marsh lands or a spit. Stuff just seems to be attracted to those areas for some reason. We search a lot of driftwood and log piles along with seaweed and kelp piles. We have small ¼” diameter steel rods for walking and we poke the piles. It always amazes me how many times we have poked a pile of kelp and heard the sound of something plastic or glass inside a stinky pile of kelp. We would have walked right by it without seeing it. Searching driftwood piles is tiring work. You are crawling up and down huge piles of logs sometimes and it can be dangerous. Please be very careful where you step. I have twisted an ankle more than once stepping onto a log and it starts to roll. You will crash and get hurt. You will also get slivers, so a good pair of gloves helps. Floats of all kinds will find their way into cracks and crevices at the bottom of the piles. Take your time and search all the little nooks and crannies! You don’t necessarily need piles of logs. Search the back of single logs and rocks away from the water. Floats will get caught in the little indents behind a single log or rock lying on the beach. The sand usually washes out from behind them a little when the water recedes. We have found many a treasure behind a single log or large rock. Poke the sand, with a stick or rod that has blown up the side of a log. Floats will be buried quickly with sand here on a windy day! Also, look for little purple and clear jelly fish called Vellela. If you see them on a beach in a line freshly washed up, have a seat and watch the water line in that area. Vellela hang with glass floats. I don't know what the attraction is except that Vellela like to drift with the stuff that drifts around the ocean.
. Watch eroding sand dunes. We have pulled over 100 floats in one day out of a 6 foot high by 100 foot long sand embankment. They were just stuck in the sand years ago and the wind covered them with sand. For years they sat there until there was some beach erosion from a storm and we just happened to be in the right place at the right time. That day we saw a half of a float in the sand bank and then another. We started digging and they just kept coming out of the sand everywhere. That was probably the best day we ever had. We worked until dark. The next day we went back and only found 3. Most of the sand embankment was gone! Go figure!
My mom found one last summer in July 2006 on the water line and there were about 200 people on the beach that day. A lot of people walked right by it! The biggest mistake people make is that they are looking for an entire float! A lot of floats we find we might only see a portion of it. Barnacle growth and sand can hide almost all of a float. We always look for a portion of a glass float sticking out of the sand, kelp, or driftwood pile.
Sandy beaches are best because sand doesn’t break glass floats! We find them on rocky beaches but find a lot of broken ones also! The benefit with rocky beaches is some beautiful beach glass that has broken and has been polished from the water and sand. We also will search far from the water up into the grasses! On flatter beaches, when winds reach 50-60 mph, the wind tends to blow round floats up into the grass where they get stuck. It is a little more work! Make sure you have a good pair of jeans on. Some grasses can cut the heck out of bare skin on your legs.
Best places in the world to find glass fishing floats! EBay and Japan! They still have a ton! Any beach that is on the Pacific Ocean can produce glass floats! The Pacific Ocean loves to carry them around for years and then suddenly send them to lucky beachcombers to find!
I keep good track of tides and winter storms. High tides are best because vehicle and foot traffic is less and most floats come in at high tide during the last hours surge. I keep track of where low pressure storms come ashore and which way the wind is blowing. The center of a low pressure storm on the Washington, Alaska and Oregon coast is always the hotspot! Watch the weather reports! They will show you where the storms are going to come ashore. This makes the most of your time beachcombing. If there is an offshore flow, stuff just isn't going to wash up. But if there is an onshore flow for more than 72 hours then the small floats will start showing up. If you start finding styrofoam floats, light bulbs, plastic and glass bottles you are in the right area at the right time. Small glass floats come within 12-24 hours of the styrofoam and plastic.
Best places on a beach are where there might be a river, stream, or entrance into marsh lands or a spit. Stuff just seems to be attracted to those areas for some reason. We search a lot of driftwood and log piles along with seaweed and kelp piles. We have small ¼” diameter steel rods for walking and we poke the piles. It always amazes me how many times we have poked a pile of kelp and heard the sound of something plastic or glass inside a stinky pile of kelp. We would have walked right by it without seeing it. Searching driftwood piles is tiring work. You are crawling up and down huge piles of logs sometimes and it can be dangerous. Please be very careful where you step. I have twisted an ankle more than once stepping onto a log and it starts to roll. You will crash and get hurt. You will also get slivers, so a good pair of gloves helps. Floats of all kinds will find their way into cracks and crevices at the bottom of the piles. Take your time and search all the little nooks and crannies! You don’t necessarily need piles of logs. Search the back of single logs and rocks away from the water. Floats will get caught in the little indents behind a single log or rock lying on the beach. The sand usually washes out from behind them a little when the water recedes. We have found many a treasure behind a single log or large rock. Poke the sand, with a stick or rod that has blown up the side of a log. Floats will be buried quickly with sand here on a windy day! Also, look for little purple and clear jelly fish called Vellela. If you see them on a beach in a line freshly washed up, have a seat and watch the water line in that area. Vellela hang with glass floats. I don't know what the attraction is except that Vellela like to drift with the stuff that drifts around the ocean.
. Watch eroding sand dunes. We have pulled over 100 floats in one day out of a 6 foot high by 100 foot long sand embankment. They were just stuck in the sand years ago and the wind covered them with sand. For years they sat there until there was some beach erosion from a storm and we just happened to be in the right place at the right time. That day we saw a half of a float in the sand bank and then another. We started digging and they just kept coming out of the sand everywhere. That was probably the best day we ever had. We worked until dark. The next day we went back and only found 3. Most of the sand embankment was gone! Go figure!
My mom found one last summer in July 2006 on the water line and there were about 200 people on the beach that day. A lot of people walked right by it! The biggest mistake people make is that they are looking for an entire float! A lot of floats we find we might only see a portion of it. Barnacle growth and sand can hide almost all of a float. We always look for a portion of a glass float sticking out of the sand, kelp, or driftwood pile.
Sandy beaches are best because sand doesn’t break glass floats! We find them on rocky beaches but find a lot of broken ones also! The benefit with rocky beaches is some beautiful beach glass that has broken and has been polished from the water and sand. We also will search far from the water up into the grasses! On flatter beaches, when winds reach 50-60 mph, the wind tends to blow round floats up into the grass where they get stuck. It is a little more work! Make sure you have a good pair of jeans on. Some grasses can cut the heck out of bare skin on your legs.
Best places in the world to find glass fishing floats! EBay and Japan! They still have a ton! Any beach that is on the Pacific Ocean can produce glass floats! The Pacific Ocean loves to carry them around for years and then suddenly send them to lucky beachcombers to find!
Who to take with you!
Everyone! Beachcombing is a great way for dads, moms, kids and the dogs to spend a relaxing day together! My whole family spends a lot of time together at the beach! We love to beachcomb. Rain or shine the beach is home to us! Everyone finds things and we even get competitive about it sometimes. Many a race down the beach has happened with my brothers, kids or dad when we see a bright colored buoy at the water line!
We do have 2 golden retrievers that have an uncanny sense of smell and retrieve floats on a constant basis. I think it must be the fishy ocean smell that causes them to find so many. They also love seashells! It’s quite funny to see the expressions on people’s faces as one of the dogs is running down the beach with a crab buoy or sand dollar seashell in their mouth!
Remember!
Every time is successful for us because we enjoy the beach and the company of family even if we don’t find one thing!
Last but not least, it isn't like it used to be. We still find glass floats, but we go longer and farther to get them. Last winter we found 22 glass fishing floats and hundreds of Styrofoam and plastic floats. 20 years ago we found hundreds of glass fishing floats, few Styrofoam and plastic floats. 50 years ago people would fill trucks with glass floats. It’s not like that anymore but persistence always pays off!
Luck is the biggest part of it. Every time can be a success if you pick up the small things like bottles, rope, netting, plastic and styrofoam floats. You clean the beach of debris and can have a nice maritime theme on a fence or porch with them. We sell them on eBay! Helps pay for our beachcombing expenses.
Every time is successful for us because we enjoy the beach and the company of family even if we don’t find one thing!
Last but not least, it isn't like it used to be. We still find glass floats, but we go longer and farther to get them. Last winter we found 22 glass fishing floats and hundreds of Styrofoam and plastic floats. 20 years ago we found hundreds of glass fishing floats, few Styrofoam and plastic floats. 50 years ago people would fill trucks with glass floats. It’s not like that anymore but persistence always pays off!
Luck is the biggest part of it. Every time can be a success if you pick up the small things like bottles, rope, netting, plastic and styrofoam floats. You clean the beach of debris and can have a nice maritime theme on a fence or porch with them. We sell them on eBay! Helps pay for our beachcombing expenses.
Books!
There are a lot of good books out there on beachcombing, so if you don’t live by water like us get a book and you will be right there with us! Days we don’t go beachcombing I will sit and read a good book on it! Nothing like losing yourself in a good book in the comfort of a dry and warm home!
There are a lot of good books out there on beachcombing, so if you don’t live by water like us get a book and you will be right there with us! Days we don’t go beachcombing I will sit and read a good book on it! Nothing like losing yourself in a good book in the comfort of a dry and warm home!
Hope this helps all our future beachcombers! If this guide has helped you please take the time to vote "yes" below. We need all the votes we can get!
Good luck and happy beachcombing!
Aaron
TINA AND AARONS GLASS FLOAT SHOP
Good luck and happy beachcombing!
Aaron
TINA AND AARONS GLASS FLOAT SHOP
Guide created: 12/27/06 (updated 08/17/08)
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