A Gift From the Ocean
As a parting gift of my service trip to Midway Atoll, the wife of the Refuge Manager gave me this beautiful blue-green glass float. It is pretty good sized. About 6 inches in diameter. You can tell it was hand-blown and has a rounded glass plug that lights up nicely when the sunlight strikes it right.
Glass floats are not uncommon on Midway. Its location in the Pacific and the fact that there aren't that many people living there makes finding and collecting them a little easier. Most glass floats are Japanese in origin. They were fashioned out of recycled sake bottle glass (giving them that blue-green color) and attached to fishing nets. When the floats got loose from their nets, they joined the rest of the flotsam and jetsam riding the oceans' currents until one day this one ended up on the beaches of Midway Atoll.
If only it could talk, I'm sure this float would have some pretty interesting stories to tell.
As a parting gift of my service trip to Midway Atoll, the wife of the Refuge Manager gave me this beautiful blue-green glass float. It is pretty good sized. About 6 inches in diameter. You can tell it was hand-blown and has a rounded glass plug that lights up nicely when the sunlight strikes it right.
Glass floats are not uncommon on Midway. Its location in the Pacific and the fact that there aren't that many people living there makes finding and collecting them a little easier. Most glass floats are Japanese in origin. They were fashioned out of recycled sake bottle glass (giving them that blue-green color) and attached to fishing nets. When the floats got loose from their nets, they joined the rest of the flotsam and jetsam riding the oceans' currents until one day this one ended up on the beaches of Midway Atoll.
If only it could talk, I'm sure this float would have some pretty interesting stories to tell.
Comments
 | 8:29am August 7 2007Lowryn said: Beautiful and fascinating, thank you |
 | 7:37pm August 7 2007SGKrebs said: that's an interesting origin of the glass |
 | 11:57pm August 7 2007ohhahhwho said: I'm not too sure it'd remember much after the Sake :) |
 | 12:58pm August 8 2007CeterusParibus said: fascinating story and very nice photo |
 | 10:12pm August 9 2007yellville said: We used to find them on the beaches in Ca. (mostly after a storm) when we were kids |
 | 11:29am August 10 2007DGM said: Dies it have a letter inside? |
 | 12:23pm August 11 2007pueo said: (reply to comment #40649) No letter as far as I could tell DGM. Mostly air and glass. |
| 12:27pm August 11 2007pueo said: (reply to comment #40457) Ohhahhwho, I suppose that maybe why it was lost at sea for so long :) |
 | 9:27am August 12 2007maefleur said: interesting info. you've captured it so nicely here in beautiful light. |
| 2:30am August 16 2007pueo said: (reply to comment #40749) Thanks Maefleur. I suppose it's one of the advantages with photographing still-life. The subject doesn't run away :). Although I suppose there was still the variable of the natural sunlight that I used. The clouds changed the lighting and such in unpredictable ways. |
 | 10:16am February 18 2008abojovna said: Thank you for interesting comment of your precious photo! |
| 4:06am February 19 2008pueo said: (reply to comment #51675) I'm glad you enjoyed it. |
