Tag Archives: glass floats

The Abundant Treasures of Alinginae

We had so much fun exploring the outer islands of Alinginae. We walked 10 islands and found some great treasures.

The first island we visited was Ucchuwanen Island.  Our friend told us he found lots of glass floats here.  We ended walking over 5 miles, searching through the bush, rocks, and debris.

We found one 6” float, one rolling pin, and 9 various sizes of small floats.  It was a big haul out for us!  Read about the origin of glass floats in our blog “Rare Japanese Glass Floats.”

Animal Treasures

A large coconut crab hid inside a dead tree stump. 

These coconut crabs taste absolutely delicious.  However, we let this one live despite our desire to have him for dinner.

A log of birds, bird nests, and babies can be found on several islands. 

I love this fuzzy baby bird.  His mama sat on him to keep him warm and happy.

Remnants of a whale washed ashore on the windward side of the island.  It was a heartbreaking find.  The head, jawbone, ribs, vertebras, and jaw were laying on the beach.

Whale carcass on Alinginae

Whale carcass on Alinginae

Our blog posts run 4-6 weeks behind actual live events. 

We visited Alinginae in late January.  Our last blog post has a lot of gorgeous photos of Alinginae’s waters.

Japanese glass floats

Rare Japanese Glass Floats

Norway originally produced glass floats in the 1800’s to hold up fishing lines and nets.  Later the Japanese started producing them in the 1910 and mass producing them in 1920’s.  And since they made so many the glass floats became known as “Japanese glass floats.”  The glass floats range from 2″-20″ in diameter.  The Japanese made most floats found today.

The most common color is green because they were made from sake bottles. Other colors include aquamarine (turquoise), clear, amber, amethyst, and blue. The most prized and rare color is a red or cranberry hue. Gold was used to make the cranberry glass making these very expensive to make.  Other brilliant tones such as emerald green, cobalt blue, purple, yellow and orange were primarily made in the 1920s and 30s.

Plastic and aluminum replaced the glass floats in the late 1940’s.  So, the glass floats that we’ve found could be up to 80+ years old!

It is super difficult to find large 12″ glass floats which is why they are the find of the century!  We were lucky enough to find a beautiful turquoise 12″ glass float in French Polynesia 6 years ago.  I was over the moon with this rare find!  We then found a 12″ green one in Maloelap. 

The Path Across Rocks and Coral

It is amazing to me that these floats make it onto the shores.  They are at sea for many decades. Then they generally, cross over the reef and sharp rocks / coral to get to the windward side of the islands.  

Leaves and trash cover most of the floats that we find.  It is a true treasure hunt to find them.  Can you find the small 3″ glass float in the photo?  This float just arrived with the king tide. He was sitting on top of the rocks, near the bushes.

Here is another opportunity to find a float. This one is pretty easy.

It is amazing that these fragile glass floats make it across all of these rocks.  Do you see the glass float in the large photo?

We find many small glass floats.  Looking at our pile you would think these balls are easily found.  However, we walked around 35+ islands searching for them.  We looked through the rocks, broken coral, debris, bushes, and trash to find these floats.

Disappointing Breaks

In fact, we are 10 times more likely to find broken pieces of floats than complete, in tact, floats.

We find so many broken beauties.  We also get tricked a lot.  The sun reflects off plastic  and glass bottles. The trick of the eye makes you think they are glass floats.  This red lightbulb fooled me too!

Rolling Pin Glass Float

The most popular “rolling pin” glass floats are the Hokkaido and Tohoku rollers. The Hokkaido Roller is from the island of Hokkaido which is located at the northern Japan. The Tohoku Roller is from the region Tohoku – just below Hokkaido.

Roller pin floats are more fragile than the round floats.  We feel exceptionally blessed to have found four!

We actually found another rolling pin float called “a sausage” (far right).  A true treasure.

Matt and I find some great items on our treasure hunt!  

And we found some stainless floats.

We hunted over 4 months, across 8 atolls and on 40+ islands.  It was a true treasure hunt. 

Our blog posts run 8-10 weeks behind actual live events. 

We share many critters we find in Rongelap in our last blog post.

Rongelap

There is Beauty in Rongelap

Rongelap is a truly a beautiful atoll with its crystal clear waters in a wide range of blue hues, towering palm trees, and white and pink sandy beaches.   We explore 16 islands in the Rongelap atoll and found them all to be stunning.

The waters are the most crazy clear shades of blue and the shores have pink sand and towering palm trees that sway in the breeze.  Eniaetok Island is located on the eastern side (in the middle) of the atoll.  We had excellent holding during the 30+ knots of wind.

Tufa Island is located in the very southern end of Rongelap.  It is “U” shape anchorage and is pretty protected from most winds.  We anchored in 3m of water and put out a stern anchor to keep us from moving over some shallow bommies.

The blue and green hues never cease to take my breath away!

Drone shot taken at sunrise.

Super Cool Finds

We find some giant clams snorkeling in the lagoon by the boat. Most of these are in 10-40′ of water.  The largest we found was about 4′ long and the the others were between 1-2.5′.  Super cool and very beautiful.

We find our first nurse shark.  We drove the dinghy right up to him, anchored the dinghy, I got out, walked by him, took my photos, and he did not budge.  He was a good 5′ long and just enjoyed the shallow waters.

Bird Sanctuary

Birds are thriving and breeding in Rongelap.  There are dozens of bird species, nests, and babies all over the northern islands. 

We encountered something that we have never seen before.   A dozen birds sat in a circle on top of broken coral and rocks.  We passed as far away from them as possible.  However, our movement caused them all to fly away. To our surprise, they were each sitting on either eggs or newborn baby birds!

There are 7 speckled eggs and 3 baby birds in the photo below – can you find them all?

The boobies make nests on the ground and their babies are covered in white fuzz. They are so cute and I’d love to see if they are as soft as they look!

The white terns do not make nests.  They simply lay their eggs on the branches. The babies grow up on the same branch (top right photo).

Just for Fun

What do you do when you’ve been walking uninhabited islands for months?  Silly things, like dressing up this rusted cylinder on the beach.

Matt found a piece of plastic and decided to carve and hang it.

Portuguese Man-O-Wars

We found lots of Portuguese man-o-wars (poisonous) along the shoreline.  They cannot live on land and are dead. Matt made a game out of popping them.  But I just avoided the poisonous buggers.

We had the most beautiful sunrises while staying at Eniaetok Island in Rongelap.

Our blog posts run 4-6 weeks behind actual live events. 

We were in Rongelap during the first part of January 2025. 

Did you catch our last blog on the Ghost Town of Rongelap?