Beachcombing In Japan

Greg Liljestrom's Photos

More Recent Beachcombing Adventures

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Greg Liljestrom's Beachcombing Adventures

During this last fall (fall '97) I was contacted by Greg Liljestrom who is in the U.S. Air Force Stationed at Misawa Air Base in Misawa city, northern Japan. He was excited to share some recent beachcombing adventures with me.

Greg and his family and friends have found that beachcombing in Northern Japan is exceptional as glass floats are still used and wash up in abundance. Here are some snapshots of his adventures:

 

The Beaches of Northern Japan

OK, so they won't be using these beaches for the next episode of "Baywatch". Greg reports that the beaches are heavily littered and covered with broken glass. He says these aren't the type of beaches for those "back to nature" walks. Plastic floats can be found by the hundreds and when the winds are blowing from the west, the glass floats can be found by the dozens and sometimes, the hundreds also.

The local fisherman have piles of large glass floats stacked near the fishing huts. Some of the locals will find floats on the beach and sell them back to the fisherman. That's of course when US Military personnel aren't snatching them up for collections first! Actually, the locals often pick up the plastic ones and set the glass ones aside. After all, who wants a hand blown glass float when you can have a plastic one! They think the Americans are crazy for wanting the hand blown glass floats.

Greg found that he has to beat the locals to the beach as they often collect floats early in the morning. This is why we find Greg and company searching for the floats at night. As you can see, they've got that beachcombing bug real bad!

More pictures of Greg's finds are in the gallery of floats

Greg and Ron's Continuing Beachcombing Adventures

Greg and Ron also sent some interesting beachcombing pictures of a trip they had in January. I'll let Greg tell of their experiences in his own words:

Lynn, Shannon and I went out on 1 Jan to try our luck as we got a tip of a place on the NW side of the island to look for small balls. We drove a total of 198 miles in our travel and could not get over the mountains because the road was closed for the winter. We had a great day anyway as there was not a car on the road for most of the day because New Years is a BIG deal to the Japanese.

These where taken on the Mitsu Bay side (west) of the island. As you can see it's quite trashy. The big yellow ball (plastic) is about 3 ft in diameter.

This is my backpack in the day. I made it out of a Coleman Peak 1 Backpack by removing the pack and making a big mesh bag. I use bunji cords to hold the bag tight when I have balls in it. I can carry 4 BIG ones in it.

We were coming down a mountain road and saw this pile of balls.

Ron and I went out this morning looking for small balls on the Pacific (east) side way NE on the Island. As you can see the roads were kinda snowy and icy. I'm glad I had the wife's 4wd Subaru, the ol Toyota van would have been toast in the mountains.

This is only one of the displays. This thing will draw a map as you go and then you can hit MARK and it will place a waypoint on the map.

Here's Ron doing his duty. There was no snow on the ground when we got to the beach.

Ok now for the good stuff. We hit PAY DIRT! We got to the beach at 0830 and headed south down the beach. The wind was blowing real good from the West and the snow was coming in. As we walked we hit all the trash we could. About an hour into it we found our first ball. Then we found another. Ron and I where talking about all the people over here that ball hunt and how they are so tight lipped about where they go. Ron said a guy told him he found a bunch of balls all attached to a net. I asked Ron if he knew who it was or was it just a story. About that time I looked to my left and saw what looked like a small ball in among a bunch of rope. I told Ron "Hey there's a ball" and as I got closer I said there's a couple of them. Just as I got to it Ron came around the other side of it and said "Holly SH*T, theres a bunch of them" and pull up the rope. Attached to the rope was fish hooks and 17 balls. Man I couldn't believe as we where just talking about that very thing happening.

We cut off as many hooks as we could because Ron knew that they would stab him in the back as he carried the bag with them in. We kept heading south and found a place to stash the bag. We ended up walking a total of 2 hours south which meant a 2 hour return. Along the way we found a total of 32 balls. We got what we were looking for.

These are the loose balls we found. The grey one in the upper right is made out of aluminum. Don't have a clue as to where it came from. The rope tie ons are corroded off but the rest of it is in pretty good shape.

He stuck himself a couple of times trying to get the hooks out. The balls are all different colors. I have a couple of them that have a real light purple tint to them. The softball sized ball next to the grey one with the light rope on it was found on the side of a sand dune. I don't know how it could have gotten up that high as there is nothing on the dune but sand. It's real hazzy due to rolling around on the sand.

Nice net on it though. By the time we got back both our dogs were tired.

I'll keep you informed on the lasted adventures in Northern Japan.

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