Experience Westport, Washington

View Original

Westport's Wild Floats 2021

It's Back! Westport South Beach Historical Society brings you #wildfloats2021. In partnership with the City of Westport, Westport South Beach Historical Society is happy to bring you another year of Wild Floats. There will be 1,200 authentic Japanese glass fishing floats released along our Westport Beaches with the goal of tidal landings and beach finds during the Beachcombing season, ending Memorial Day 2021. 

We see so many visitors and families engage in beachcombing and the hope of finding a real float to experience classic beachcombing nostalgia. We have worked with our expert "float Fairies and wranglers" on strategies to get the bulk of the floats to land across a short window of South Beach from Westhaven State Park to Grayland Beach. As Washington's "Original Beach Town," Westport is the first and only "real float" event that gets people onto the beaches like the old days and gives you the chance to take home an authentic Japanese glass float find. 

The Maritime Museum uses "real floats," most recently from Tsunami clean-up in Japan and imported back to the USA. These are authentic working floats as opposed to decorative thin-skinned art floats. Most floats are shades of green because that is the color of glass from recycled sake bottles, as has been the tradition in Japan. These heavy glass floats are survivors who travel thousands of miles across the pacific and not prone to breakage. 

The floats are hand-etched with "WSBHS 2021" to identify floats released from the program as opposed to what we refer to as "Truly Wild" floats that are still found with regularity by lucky beachcombers. I am one of the folks who engrave our floats for #wildfloats2021. I occasionally pick out a float with a layer of dried mud and cannot help making a connection. This float, which ended up being swept into a muddy debris field as a coastal fishing village was sept away, has made its way across the Pacific to another fishing community. While it is in my hand, I think about how it will lose that layer of Japanese mud when it hits the water again and becomes a beachcombed treasure for someone. 

Happy hunting! 

John Shaw 

Executive Director at Westport Maritime Museum