Hunting for glass floats is a bit like an adult version of Easter egg hunting. They’re typically found on your hands and knees by meticulous searching underneath bushes and plants. Instead of being rewarded with candies and sweets, there’s beautiful glass treasures, many over a century old.
Excursion Day
Today the plan was simple. Our small group of yacht guests and crew arrived to a remote island in Ailinginae, part of the Marshall Islands and smack in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Crystal clear turquoise water and white sandy beaches surrounded us while White Terns and Black Noddies flew overhead, just 8 degrees North of the equator. There wasn’t any obvious evidence of human settlement on this tropical paradise similarly to most neighboring islands in this region.
I’d only recently heard of Glass float collecting. Before styrofoam and plastic was invented, fisherman used glass balls to keep their nets afloat at sea. Most were hand blown in a variety of colors, with unique stamps indicating the point of origin. From the late 1800’s to mid 1970s, long line nets used millions of these glass floats worldwide.
Occasionally storms and swells knocked the glass floats adrift in the ocean where currents eventually washed them ashore. Today we had a reasonable chance to discover these priceless souvenirs in such a remote paradise where there weren’t any other visitors for competition.
A Typical Glass Float
Glass floats come in all shapes and sizes. The most common ones are 4-6” inches in diameter while larger sizes reached over one foot wide. The glass is typically a greenish to light blue tint while rarer red colors include gold flakes. Many Japanese floats were created from recycled Saki bottles. This recycling process created the distinctive air bubbles found in the glass.
Nowadays, these treasures are highly sought after collector items with prices ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars depending on it’s condition and if it includes the original netting.
Exploring Ashore
We beached the Zodiac dingy filled with 12 eager guests and crew, carrying large canvas shopping bags in hand. All were dressed in long protective clothing and boots to help protect prickly vegetation ashore. The captain even packed a machete to assist with clearing a route.
The island wasn’t any wider nor longer than two football fields. Yet it was easy to lose sense of direction once one penetrated through the dense underbrush. Bushes towered over us on all four sides and quickly obscured the beach view.
The key to finding glass floats was to search in the low spots. A century of storm surges may have washed them into bushes, underneath vines, or even in low lying branches. I paid particular attention to where trash and debris had accumulated over the years. Mankind’s plastic footprint was a depressing sight on such a remote island, however it also indicated prime territory to discover floats.
Discovery
A few minutes later, a greenish tint caught my eye underneath a large branch half covered by debris. A moment later, another tint. I lifted two circular balls in pristine condition from the sandy dirt. Nearby I heard shrieking sounds of excitement from guests somewhere in the undergrowth. Perhaps I wasn’t the only one who found success.
A few hours later back on the boat, everyone counted the haul. The guests’ eyes darted around the treasure like excited children inspecting presents on Christmas Day: nearly two hundred floats in varying sizes. Most were blue and 6″ in diameter. Others were much larger and still with the original Japanese stamps. Some were even wrapped in their original netting.
A few guests even found glass rolling pins, vintage wine bottles and other unique trinkets worth taking home.
While a beachcomber in other parts of the world might be lucky to find a lone glass float washed up after a storm, our group had discovered a jackpot.
How many decades had these floats lie undisturbed on this remote island before our arrival? Where were the fisherman today who used these same floats? How many still remained on the island?
What a unique treasure hunt to be a part of.
