Your beachcombing stories...

This started on another thread, thought I'd maybe start a new one and see what stories are out there...

during a dream-fulfilling trip to Easter Island we were rock-hopping on a quiet part of the coast after doing some amazing snorkelling in some rockpools and close-to-shore reefs when I spotted a real, washed up fishing float amongst the rocks. Unfortunately it wasn't vintage, nor glass, but the thought of finding a real washed up float on the coast of an exotic pacific island was so amazing...

unfortunately this photo is the only souvenir I could take with me as I was backpacking through south america and this thing would have taken up too much precious room in my backpack!!! Would have been cool in my soon-to-be home tiki bar though...

and here is one from Beachbumz that I have copied from the other thread:

On 2008-02-11 19:01, beachbumz wrote:

Here's my story.
About 14 years ago I was camping out near a beach called Wainapanapa black sand beach park near Hana on Maui, woke up early that morning to catch sunrise and ventured down to the beach and walla... Found a beautiful 12-14" greenish/blue float laying on the beach with heavy crustaceans around the middle part.. It looked like it had been floating out there for years...I had been wanting one of those since I had moved to the islands.. Later on I let a friend babysit it out on her lanai while I went travelin to indo for a few months and unfortunately while I was away somebody stole it... I just hope there enjoying it as much as I did..

so, any others???

When I lived in Ireland we used to find loads of cool stuff, mainly dead, even a Giant squid, but it would have got rather smelly hanging in a Tiki bar.
The best though was a Whale bone that was roughly 14 feet long and a foot across washed up on some rocks in a big swell, i rushed back to the village I lived in to get some help moving it as it was so heavy, but when i got back the tide and swell had claimed it again.
Would have made a great table or bench

Well, this isn't nearly as exotic as Easter Island or Maui, but we went to South Padre Island, Texas for my 50th birthday. (I'd rather have been on Kauai but budget and self-employment prevented that from happening.)

We spotted something bright among the mountains of seaweed -- this was only two months after Katrina and the beach was littered with flotsam. Turns out one of the oil platforms off the coast lost one of their life rings -- we looked it up by the ID printed on the side of the ring.

It's currently hanging on the fence in the backyard next to my koi pond. Soon it'll be at Tiki Acres hanging near my tiki bar.

I posted this in the Tiki Radio thread, but thought I'd re-post it here:

Floating Treasures Capture Authors' Imaginations
LISTEN
NPR, All Things Considered, September 1, 2006 - Labor Day weekend is considered the start of the best flotsaming season — where you might find untold surprises washed up on the beach. Author Skye Moody and children's book author and illustrator David Wiesner extol the virtues and glories of "floating debris."

Awoke at dawn. Everyone in the house was still sleeping it off. Half a beer on the kitchen table, took a swig. Awful. Cigarette butts, no wonder. Made my way down to the beach. Orange sunlight, like a Fu-Manchu album cover. Or John Denver. Something sticks me in the foot. Egads! Hypodermic needle, faded plastic nestled gently in the golden sand.

The needle in question now hangs proudly above my bar! Eight years and still AIDS-FREE! (Ladies?)

(THIS NEVER HAPPENED)

Passed out on the beach reached into my back pocket still had my comb!

My sister found this:

good find! :D

how does it look hanging from her bar?

Read the whole story, and see more pictures like this

in Tiki Travel under "Castaway Kirsten Cargo Craft, Cape Horn":

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=27345&forum=16&0 :D

Great idea for a thread, Harro

I would love to find an orange life ring at the beach, but I have yet to be fortunate enough to find one. I think I may just break down and buy one! (or five)
My dog and I wake up early every morning and go for a walk on the beach and we find all kinds of stuff - mostly trash that washes down through the stormdrains, but we do find quite a few lobster trap bouys:

I didn't put much thought into the decorating, I just started hanging them as I found them and my back yard kind of turned into a nautical (very run-down) beach shack.

The absolute coolest thing I've so far is a 10' surfboard:

I am also very fortunate to live near where the Hedley's lived and I walk the very same coast that they did back in the 30's and 40's as they made their fortune with flotsam and jetsom. It's sad to think that all the cool usefull stuff that they found (wooden boxes, fishing flaots, cork floats) is now mostly plastic waste.

We also find boat bumpers, drift wood (natural wood), drift lumber, boat parts, pier pilings and other fishing industry stuff like plastic floats. Other non-fishing industry stuff I've come accross include things that kids like to chuck off of cliffs (like rusted bar-b-ques, bikes), engines (old VERY smooth engines - I know of at least 3 in the area), a truck axle (with 4 wheels and tires stiff attached) what appears to be either a very large old tree trunk, or a mast from a ship, fossils (tons of marine fossils along the coast) and (on a sad day) a 27 foot dead grey whale. I'd love to come across a shipwreck like yours, bigbro, but I have yet to find one of those! We do have an old shipwreck of a greek freighter (the Dominator) near the base of point vicente light house, but it wrecked in the 60's and all that's left now is bent metal. You wouldn't know it was a shipwreck just by looking at it. Still cool, though.

Nice finds ......These pix are from our recent Kauai trip (see tiki travel)

On the road to some of the off the beaten path beaches we would see houses like this so we figured we were heading the right direction

Larsons beach

Mrs. Fury found a large suitcase in a thrift store on the way to Kiluea lighthouse for $5.00 so we could get our booty home

Unloaded

We felt we did our part to clean up the beach

Koka Nut and Palm Farmer Johnny and I were watching the kite surfers on St. Pete Skyway beach.

Found a dock pole of some kind. Had to have it.

Here it is at the entrance of The Rusty Key with the barnacles and pulley still attached. (Batman angle on the photo.) It's about 9 feet tall.

[ Edited by: pablus 2008-02-16 12:40 ]

Great Thread and lots of nice scores! Wow Bongofury, you guys made out nicely and left Kauai a little tidier, Good work! Great to see you guys I wish we could of spent a little more time hangin' out.

On the West side of Kauai near Port Allen there is a beach called Glass Beach that is near a dump. Lots of weird stuff washes up there mostly sea glass in fact the whole beach has glass sand. The cliffs have old cars and twisted metal that looks like they are part of the cliff. I have found some really nice pieces of Sea Glass there. I took my Mom and my Aunt out there and they went back a bunch of times. The funny thing is of all the beautiful beaches here on the island they spent hours at the beach by the dump.

I have found lots of fishing floats, bumpers, rope, coconuts and nice peices of driftwood all over the island. I have seen some nice collections of flotsam decorating some of the houses around here. No pics yet but here is a pic of the sand at Glass Beach

That sand is beautiful. It reminds me of one of those "magic eye" 3D pictures. I see a ninja fighting with an eagle.

On 2008-02-16 17:25, Sweet Daddy Tiki wrote:
That sand is beautiful. It reminds me of one of those "magic eye" 3D pictures. I see a ninja fighting with an eagle.

Yes the sand is beautiful. But Sweet Daddy Mother of Pearl, what are you smoking?
I'm seeing something totally different, and they're not ninjas...or eagles!

[ Edited by: EdsGoneTiki 2008-02-17 00:31 ]

My girlfriend Barbie gave me a whole case of crabs one night, on the beach in 1968.

On 2008-02-17 00:26, EdsGoneTiki wrote:

On 2008-02-16 17:25, Sweet Daddy Tiki wrote:
That sand is beautiful. It reminds me of one of those "magic eye" 3D pictures. I see a ninja fighting with an eagle.

Yes the sand is beautiful. But Sweet Daddy Mother of Pearl, what are you smoking?
I'm seeing something totally different, and they're not ninjas...or eagles!

[ Edited by: EdsGoneTiki 2008-02-17 00:31 ]

Nice floats!

LOL Tiki!

[ Edited by: LOL Tiki 2008-02-17 10:27 ]

so....trying to get this topic back on track, I went to the gulf side of florida to do a little bit of beachcombing of another kind. I had heard a rumor about a beach where the sediment is comprised of fossilized sharks teeth (among other ground up bits of shell and whatever rock/coral is local). My brother-in-law reminded me while we were there and said that he thought it was close to where we were staying. So the whole fam piled into our cars and off we went!

We went to (of all places - you californians will laugh) Venice beach and went further south (to get away from the big crowds) to Caspersen Beach. We only had a short amount of time to hang at the beach, so we didn't walk far from the parking lot and started looking for fossil sharks teeth. I figured we wouldn't find any along the swash zone and shallow water, because TONS of people come here looking for sharks teeth. I thought for sure, you'd either have to scuba, snorkel or walk a fair distance from the parking lot to find any. We tried anyway....

looking for sharks teeth......

sure enough....it's true! Now, not every hand full of sand contains sharks teeth, but we found about 100 (among all of us) within about 2 hours of digging. And this was where everyone else was looking for teeth too. I can only imagine the types of teeth and the amount you could find in an area that is a little less accessible.

I'm usually not the type of guy to take shells and rocks from beaches, but I had to break my rule and take a few home with me....and share the experience with my work mates.

by the way, because I wanted to make sure that it was okay to take the teeth from the beach, I did a little research on what is permissible to collect from Florida beaches without a license and fossilized shark teeth (along with shells) are legal to take.

Polynesiac - putting the "F" back in "ART"

[ Edited by: Polynesiac 2009-03-03 14:56 ]

[ Edited by: Polynesiac 2009-03-15 14:37 ]

Back at home, here in good ol' Pedro. Here is this years haul of fishing crap:

This year had some amazing storms during the lobster season and I had the misfortune of having to be at work early on just about every morning the day after the storm. Which means other beachcombers got some good stuff! There were a few mornings and afternoons that I was able to head over to the rocky coast and find some goodies in addition to the every morning my faithful border collie and myself walk the sandy beach and occasionally find something washed up.
Most of what I find are lobster buoy's or similar floats for lobster fishing. Occasionally I find bumpers and whatnot too. I just like the peace of walking the coast. You really feel like your miles away from everything. Any usable trash I come across is just icing on the cake (and one less piece of garbage to entangle animals)

This year I dragged a metal lobster trap home with me:

and a crab net too:

I actually found a crab net in real good shape and I gave it to my boss at the aquarium because he runs a free "fishing with uncle larry" class that teaches the basics and etiquette if fishing. Now we can catch crabs too. (HAH!)

I usually like to walk where very few people go. In such a busy, crowded and loud city I like to "get away" as much as I can and hiking along the coast is a great way to do that. I decided to bring along a camera the last time I went down, so I snapped a few photos of the fun things along the coast. Aside from the floats and whatnot, there are some other interesting finds along the coast as well:

Engines:

See if you can find the 2 engines in this picture:

Truck axle:

washing machine? :

A Float in the wild:

-----Natural wonders-----

SP at a decent low tide (around a -.03):

Sedimentary rock erodes very easily:

I surprised these sun bathing harbor seals (and they surprised me! I kept my distance because I didn't want to startle them into the water. They just watched me the entire time as I walked by. I'm just a temporary visitor!):

and finally this picture:

I walk by this "log" a lot and got to thinking...sure is a big log...with no creasote or preservatives on it....sure is perfectly round (and the ocean most likely has something to do with that), but could this be the mast that the Headly family is sitting on in the Life Magazine picture? Maybe Ben can chime in.

Enjoy!

Thanks for sharing Jim. I love these stories. But it makes me miss the beach, the sand on my feet, the wind, the waves. sigh.

On 2009-03-03 17:49, Jungle Trader wrote:
Thanks for sharing Jim. I love these stories. But it makes me miss the beach, the sand on my feet, the wind, the waves. sigh.

Awwwww....Jungle....you can always hit the Stanislaus River......:)

Polynesiac, thanks for sharing all the great pictures and stories!

Beachcombing is great fun, and there is a new adventure around every point.

While I don't have the ocean, the Great Lakes combined shoreline is 9,402 miles.

The shoreline of the lake I live on, Lake Michigan, has a combined length of 1,659 miles including islands.

In the city I live in, you can walk the shore for miles in either direction.

With a surface area of 22,278 mi, there are all kinds of interesting flotsam that you can find along the beaches and rocks.

Boat bumpers, barrels, fishnets, buoys... all kinds of stuff floating around.

We're approaching the yearly melt off, when the shore ice leaves to reveal all that the late fall and winter storm waves threw onto the beaches.

In a few weeks, I'll share what I find!

this is a great thread, a great read, has brought up a lot of joyous memories of my youth spent on the shore and boardwalk in Redondo. I remember collecting a lot of small fishing floats (plastic bobbers) of the rock jetties.

[ Edited by: oceaotica 2009-03-04 02:25 ]

After 20 years of bouncing around as a wandering poet/SCUBA Instructor living out of a duffel and a Dive bag, moving by airplane, I don't have much to show for all my days spent wandering the beaches.

I did get to see/find some pretty cool stuff but it would all get left at the Dive Bum House's where we would be living, most of those looked like a Beachcomber Bar on the inside from years of travelers bringing home stuff they couldn't take. Come to think of it most of them were Beachcomber Bars...
ahhh the memories....

Part of my shell collection, a bit of drift wood and a nail I pulled from a ship that was uncovered during a hurricane on Bimini (noone I asked knew how long it had been there) the newspaper cliping is from all places the Kansas City Star.

[ Edited by: Beach Bum Scott 2009-03-04 07:40 ]

My best beachcombing story happened 2 summers ago. I was playing frisbee on the beach with a neighbor when i saw a Budweiser beer can floating in the whitewash. I went to go retrieve it because trash on the beach really pisses me off. As i grabbed it i realized it was full and unopened. Thank you Lord! I threw it up on the beach with plans to deal with it later. About 3-4 minutes later i saw 2 more Budweiser cans floating towards the beach, i grabbed them and they were also full and unopened. Then 2 more! Then 3 more! I was looking around for the hidden camera thinking Budweiser was filming some reality commercial or something. In the end i had 9 beers. So i put them in a bag, took them home put them in the refrigerator and handed them out to my friends on the 4th of July. We toasted to the beer Gods that had bestowed them upon us and probably the poor fisherman that dumped his cooler overboard.

As long as I can remember I always wanted to be a Beachcomber, this is my favorite place to beachcomb its the two mile of beach that surrounds my parents hill in Orkney. I went this walk last year on an unseasonably sunny two hours of daylight last winter.

looking back towards my parents house, around that beach head, over that mounds of seaweed, a hundred years ago all that seaweed would have been an important cash crop for an Orcadian crofter.

In the background you can see the hills of Hoy, malt drinkers might recognize them from the packaging of Highland Park Whisky.

This is the "Point of Ayre" where two currents meet and throw up loads of drift and plastic crap. The tower in the picture is a WW2 searchlight emplacement.

Is it a sea-monster? No its a rotting seal, the salmon farmers are allowed to kill seals that are "troubling" their farms, so they shoot them and let them float off to rot.

The white bit with rusting rings attached is the remainder of the anchor point to a massive metal anti-submarine net that protected the royal navy anchorage during WW2.

This is the second searchlight.

Notice where the steps meets the side of the searchlight wall, you can see a black square, that's the famous "Hole-in-the-head" a cave where the men of my family hid from pressgangs way back in the past.

That's the third searchlight and it marks the outer boundary of our land..

..it has a really cool bridge joining it to the hill..

..and the beach beside it is another place the gathers drift, some wood and floats. When I lived at home I was expected by my father to bring them all home, so he could reuse them on his creels.

A bit further along, if you look closely you can see more bouys and my parents dog.

In the far distance you can see some cottages and that was the extent of how far I'd beachcomb every night after school as a teenager. This is another good beach for drift, I've found ancient glass bouys, weather balloons instrument pods, bales of rubber, intact giant light bulbs and wood from sunken ships on this beach.

[ Edited by: Marty 2009-03-15 16:11 ]

Great pics and stories everyone!!! keep 'em coming!

ATT - your parents have a beautiful setup. I've always admired the scottish countryside, but I have yet to visit some of that beautiful coastline. Thank you for sharing the history and interesting finds you happened accross everyday (!) after school!!! Too cool!!!

Just a little FYI to all of us on US soil who happen upon a deceased marine mammal.
here is a link to the Marine Mammal Protection Act: http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/pdfs/laws/mmpa.pdf

Shells, exposed fossils of fish and inverts, rocks, etc. (as long as the coast line is not a protected area - check with fish and game before you go). The removal of any trash (this includes sea glass, broken plates, fishing industry waste like floats, nets, anchors, etc) are perfectly fine from any beach. Dead marine mammals and all their bits need to stay. If you see one washed up on a public beach, let the lifeguards know and they will drag the carcass back to the ocean to decompose (or sometimes bury it - but don't try to use dynamite to get rid of it! watch this old video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_t44siFyb4 ).

Marine mammal bones and teeth are very cool, and their are a number of locations that sell replica bones like:
http://www.boneclones.com/
http://www.boneroom.com/casts/bclonemarine.html
These replicas are perfectly legal to own and add to carvings and whatnot.

Polynesiac - putting the "F" back in "ART"

[ Edited by: Polynesiac 2009-03-15 14:34 ]

[ Edited by: Polynesiac 2009-03-15 17:21 ]

Saturday night into Sunday we got nailed with a pretty hefty Spring snowstorm.

8 inches of heavy wet snow and gale force winds out of the North going Northwest.

Waves nearshore were cranking at chest high plus, and perfectly groomed by the side shore to offshore winds.

After clearing our driveways, the sun came out and made the 39 degree air temp and the 36 degree water temp that much more bearable.

Surfs Up!

We hit up a favorite surf spot that hasn't worked in a few years and found long clean lines.

As I walked down the bluff trail something orange by the rock piles caught my eye.

A buoy!

Gave it a quick look before I paddled out to get some waves, with the intention of grabbing the buoy on the way out.

After riding a wave into shore, I took the walk north due to the current running side shore.

I found a nearly new boat anchor tangled in some driftwood.

Washed that off and hid it in the rocks so no one else wandering the beach would find it.

After the session, my friend Todd asked me if I had seen the anchor. I had to give it up to him as he spotted it first and tossed it on the beach.

He did help me drag the very heavy buoy up the bluff trail after I dug it out from the rocks. I wasn't aware that it had a 50 lb concrete weight on the bottom of it to keep it righted in the water.

15 minutes later we got it loaded into my mini van and I brought it home.

The buoy itself is about 4 feet or so long.

I plan on cutting the pipe off the bottom and setting it out in a corner of the yard with some fish netting.

Its pretty beat up from a winter of heavy ice and big surf, but it will make a nice addition to the yard.

Based on today's finds, I think I'll hit up another section of coast Monday and see what the winter waves have tossed ashore!

[ Edited by: Lake Surfer 2009-03-29 21:43 ]

On 2009-03-03 14:54, Polynesiac wrote:

We went to (of all places - you californians will laugh) Venice beach
looking for sharks teeth......
You mean Venus?

That's an insane catch!
If those teeth could talk.

You go lake! everyone needs a navigational buoy in their yard! Nice find, that must have been a bitch to bring back to the car after a days session in 30-some-odd-degree-that's-way-too-damn-cold-to-go-surfing water. If you found an anchor and a buoy on one day, just think of what you'll find once the ice and snow melts!

Unga - We found the fossilized sharks teeth at the "shark tooth capitol of the worls" in venice beach FL- http://www.venicegov.com/

It's on the gulf side, maybe about 1.5-2 hours south of Tampa. The actual beach we went to was Casperson beach. fun times! do a road trip to the gulf if you go down for hukilau - it's totally worth it!

Polynesiac - putting the "F" back in "ART"

[ Edited by: Polynesiac 2009-03-29 23:35 ]

i found a coral encrusted slave shackle washed up on a beach in the caribbean once, it was cool and sucked at the same time.

I found this small bottle this morning while beachcombing for seaglass. Does anyone know what it is?

https://tikicentral.com/uploads/10435/49d0f7a9.jpg

On 2009-03-30 09:49, seafog wrote:
I found this small bottle this morning while beachcombing for seaglass. Does anyone know what it is?

https://tikicentral.com/uploads/10435/49d0f7a9.jpg

Hey Seafoam - it looks like a bottle top to me - like one off of one of those fancy crystal burbon caraffes - , but I could be wrong. I see you're from tampa bay - these little white barnacles that are on it seem to grow like CRAZY in the inland gulf area around tampa and south.

tiki auction, you got any pics?

Not my personal find...
The Surfrider foundation pulled five tons of fish nets, floats and rope from Kauai's eastern shore in two years of collection.
It seems to be a lot of the plastic type and not the older stuff that would be worth keeping. Anyways it is off to the recycling plant and off of the beaches.

On 2009-03-30 11:43, tikihai wrote:
Not my personal find...
The Surfrider foundation pulled five tons of fish nets, floats and rope from Kauai's eastern shore in two years of collection.
It seems to be a lot of the plastic type and not the older stuff that would be worth keeping. Anyways it is off to the recycling plant and off of the beaches.

You're right, plastics are really filling up our oceans and are a major concern. Everything from fishing industry waste right down to plastic one-use containers that come down our storm drain systems. And plastic is forever - it just breaks into smaller and smaller bits until it's microscopic plastic. I see you're in so cal, I highly recommend viewing a documentary called "the synthetic sea" (we have it in our marine research library at Cabrillo Marine Aquarium) and check out this website: http://www.algalita.org/ Lots of good (and scary/sad) information there.

Polynesiac - putting the "F" back in "ART"

[ Edited by: Polynesiac 2009-03-30 12:23 ]

Good stuff there Polynesiac...I was semi aware of the plastic problem and gave up bottled water a couple years back just for the reason that a lot of it makes its way into the ocean. I ride my bike up the San Gabriel River path and it is very sad to see all the milk cartons, water bottles and styrofoam cups etc. that washes down into the ocean after every rain. I will try and check out that film as well.

Still real cold here, but the sun was out and I had the afternoon free.

I headed to some stretches of the south shore to do some serious beachcombing hoping for a score like Sunday.

I headed out north on a stretch of beach and found a rare (for here) fish net float.

There is barely any commercial net fishing here these days.

Next I drove to another stretch of shoreline and headed out south this time.

Not much to find besides driftwood and tons of plastic bottles and trash, until I got to a storm drain outfall.

Up against the corner of the drain was this great buoy.

It was in real good shape with a solar powered light still intact. I checked out back now that it is dark... the light is blinking on and off... it actually works.
The buoy was made of closed cell foam and no big chunks missing.

Like the previous one I found, this one also had a long piece of pipe that ran through the middle and extended 4 feet beyond the bottom of the buoy. The end section had a steel loop that was once connected to a chain or something on the bottom of the lake.

It was too large and heavy to carry back to my vehicle, especially up the 300 foot bluff above the beach. Below the light was a large nut on a bolt. It was my hope that if I too the nut off the whole steel pipe would slide out of the core.

I returned home to get some tools... monkey wrenches, WD40, a torch.

This stretch of coast was parkland and the closest parking was a 1/4 mile away. I also brought rope and a handtruck to help with the job.

Back at the buoy, I managed to get the light off, then loosened the main nut and as I hoped the whole thing came apart in 2 pieces.
I loaded the light and the metal piece it sits on into my backpack and started the journey back carrying the top cone.

Not an easy journey back up the bluff with all this weight, and the bottom half would prove to be more exhausting on a second trip. It weighed about 50 lbs.
I returned with the hand truck, left it at the top and carried the bottom piece up the bluff. Then I used the hand truck to wheel it back to my vehicle.

Whew.

The whole salvage took about 2 hours total.

Not bad, 2 buoys in 2 days. Must have been a hell of a winter out there on the big lake, I know it was inland.

I need a break from beachcombing... my back is killing me.

[ Edited by: Lake Surfer 2009-03-30 23:26 ]

On 2009-03-29 23:34, Polynesiac wrote:
You go lake! everyone needs a navigational buoy in their yard! Nice find, that must have been a bitch to bring back to the car after a days session in 30-some-odd-degree-that's-way-too-damn-cold-to-go-surfing water. If you found an anchor and a buoy on one day, just think of what you'll find once the ice and snow melts!

Well, Jim, now I've got two. :wink:

The wife has warned me not to turn our home into a salvage yard.

As far as the surfing, yea its too damn cold, but here we make the best of it.

Gale warnings issued for Tuesday again... looks like another session!

We're actually rid of the ice from the lake finally, this winter it extended out 100-200 yards in spots and built to a height of 12 feet above the water.
The snow, well that's hanging on a bit too long this year... more is on the way Friday.

[
tiki auction, you got any pics?

it was a couple of years ago, let me see if i can still find a shot of it. it was one of those things that i pulled out from behind some boulder at the beach and said cool what is it. it had a hoop and a bolt that ran straight across. the metal was almost entirely replaced by coral growth, but you could still make out parts of the exposed cast iron. i remember putting my wrist through the hoop, realized what it was and felt a chill down my spine. wanted to throw it back in the ocean, but ended up giving it to my father in law who was born and raised in the caribbean. not sure what he did with it, i think he gave it to the local museum. later saw an exhibit that had a very similar shackle.

Found this on north Clearwater Beach, FL, just south of Caladessi. The wife and I take a stroll every now and then. Mostly we get lots of sand dollars and fighting conch shells. Tonight was cool, got some good pictures. Too bad I am unable to take them home

This is a shell tree. We paid our tribute and added one, as it looks like many people did.

Close up of the shell tree.

Found this guy a mile down from the tree. I dig the use of shells for the eyes and teeth. Unknown artist. Not totally tiki, but much appreciated.

Also found this.....sometimes you just need a reminder it's there

This is a shell tree. We paid our tribute and added one, as it looks like many people did.

Maybe it's the pre-4th red wine, but that shell tree is really cool. There are very few areas left that allow something so beautiful to remain without harm. Long live the shell tree.

Cheers!

If you like the Shell tree, you'll love the Bouy tree!!! Thats right, a seagrape tree festooned with loads of bouys! This tree is in a front yard of a house on Man-O-War Cay in the Bahamas, but they are common in alot of the island settlements. In the old days it was done to ward off the evil spirits as a form of Obeah (Voodoo). We have done several trees in our yard in bouys, and they look really cool!

Love the bouy seagrape too. :) I just love anything that can be built and left alone. I'll try one on our beach and see how long it lasts. :)

I was strolling (trying to jog) down the beach yesterday, and came across the remains of a sea turtle. It looked as though it had been hit by a shark a long time ago. There was a nice crescent-shaped bite, and the area from its left armpit to above its right rear fin was missing. The shell was totally trashed, and the meat was mostly gone. What remained was its perfect skull, which was bigger than both of my fists! I know you are suppose to call the authorities when you encounter something like this in Florida, but I didn't have my cell phone with me. It was still pretty early in the morning, around 7:15am, and by the time I returned (about 15mins) someone had removed the skull! I hope the authorities catch up to that person, being a protected animal and all.

Pupule Tiki!

[ Edited by: TikiMango 2009-08-23 20:44 ]

Porthole window, verde gris patina on the bronze, about 9 inches in diameter, found off the coast of Northern California.

I like to think it was from rum runners who barely made it to shore with their cargo.....

"Save yourselves, save the rum! screamed the captain through the fog as the sharks circled the leaking ship before he drove it, the crew and the cargo to safety on the only pocket beach between miles of jagged cliffs."

It will become a mirror or picture frame for the Tiki-Lander.

Now, off to find that Japanese glass float.

[ Edited by: coruscate 2009-07-08 09:52 ]

I use to run a surf school during the summers when I was finishing college and I was never a morning person until we had to get to the beach at 8am and I would find all sorts of stuff that had washed ashore overnight. Most wasn't that interesting, but I found a lot of good driftwood planks, but the most rare for me was the fish floats. One time I even found my own Tiki Necklace that I had lost the day before in the tide line.

Below are a few things I plan on making out of driftwood if I'm able to finish all the other new stuff for Tiki Oasis:

The Tiki bird is made from all driftwood beachcombed:



And below is one of my characters dreaming up what he can make from the beachcombed items he finds.

Tony - I love the drawings! Very Hedley-Beachcomber-chic! I like how you've painted your lobster floats. That makes them look much cooler.

C - port hole???? that's TOO cool. I think I would jump for joy if I found something like that on the beach.

I got 3 pictures of recent trips that included a wee bit o' beach walking.

The Lost Coast, CA:

One of the most spectacular coastal areas I have ever been to (I do say that a lot, but I mean it everytime!). The beach at times is strewn with redwood drift wood and the redwoods come right down the cliff to the beach. We decided to do about a 5 mile day hike down the black sand beach starting at Shelter Cove. There were a few people at the trail head on the beach, but once we left that area we didn't see a soul. We had the entire beach to ourselves sharing only with sea lions and ospreys. I'm definitely coming back to backpack along the coast here.

Here we are walking the sand:

And hey! it's not so big, but I found a plastic Japanese fishing float. I'm sure there would be more during the winter months:

Gloucster, MA:

East Coast lobster float. Check out the low tide! I never checked a tide calendar, but that's a pretty big difference between high and low tide!

Polynesiac - putting the "F" back in "ART"

[ Edited by: Polynesiac 2009-08-23 17:24 ]