Weirdest Things Found on Beach Clean Ups

There are many times, when trudging through sand and seaweed, I just keep hoping that one of those vacuum packed bundles of cash would just wash ashore. While many interesting things has washed up, probably the most exciting was the spate of Panga Boats bringing in illegals. One night (no image) they came through on Jet Skis… and we wonder why Trump’s wall will not work. I guess he has never hear of oceans, tunnels and by air. A couple of the Treasure Hunters were drooling over the engine.

As I keep waiting for packet of drug money to be washed up on the beach along with my winning Lotto ticket, just thought I would share some of the oddest and strangest beach finds over the last 100 years.

1919 (Hastings, UK) German U118 Boat washed ashore.

Image: Rare Historical Photos

1935: 1784 message in bottle written by Chunosuke Matsuyama, a Japanese sailor shipwrecked was found.

1935: (Australia) historic Shipwreck in Australia which is still there on Fraser Island. SS Maheno.

1941: (Erkskay, Scotland) SS Politician was wrecked off Eriskay while carrying 28,000 cases of malt whisky. You can imagine that went swimmingly!

1980: (Zakynthos, Greece): Abandoned shipwreck is still there .

1990: (Seattle, Oregon) 60,000 Nike Tennis shoes were washed ashore when 21 shipping containers fell from a container ship. i

1992: (Pacific Ocean) 29,000 plastic yellow ducks, blue turtles and green frogs fell from a cargo ship and were lost at sea

1997: 5 million Lego pieces fell from a ship off Land’s End.

1997: (Canada) 34,000 hockey gloves and pucks were washed ashore in Canada.That was pucking awesome!

2006: (Terschelling, Netherlands) Half a million shoes washed up from a lost container from a ship

2006: (Outer Banks, North Carolina) thousands of sealed bags of Doritos tortilla chips that floated onto the beach, dry and still edible.

2007: Terschelling, Netherlands: when another ship lost several containers of bananas beaches littered with thousands of bananas – most of them safe to eat.

2007: (Devon, UK)  motorbikes, cosmetics, car parts, golf clubs, sneakers, empty wine barrels and camcorders from storm damaged ship Napolia

2007: (British Columbia) Severed human feet continue to wash ashore.

2008: (Blackpool UK) thousands of McVitie’s biscuits fell off a ferry and washed ashore.

2008: (Dorset, UK) 2,000 tons of a 5,260-ton timber cargo from Greek ship who sank in the English Channel.

2008: (Cornwall, UK): (2) WWII mines found .

2009: (Kent, UK) yet again tens of thousands of planks of timber washed up from Russian-registered ship the Sinegorsk.

2009: (Martha’s Vineyard): An unexploded bomb

2010: (India) 9 Containers of Tea off India were undrinkable due to be covered in oil.

2010 (Australia) 250 year old swivel gun- Scientists say this suggests that there was previously unknown foreign contact with Australian shores before Captain Cook landed in Australia in 1770. (Read more at The Guardian)

2010: (Texas) a woman out for a morning walk on Galveston’s Each Beach found 16 bricks of cocaine worth an estimated $2.1 million.  A year later, a jogger on Galveston’s Indian Beach found another 25 smaller bricks of cocaine, worth about $675,000. In 2008, a Crosby man found a large brick of marijuana washed ashore on Crystal Beach. (Chron) .800 pounds of marijuana washed up on South Padre Island in one shot, 50 pounds of cocaine turned up on Matagorda Island, and another similar-sized load of cocaine landed near a remote beach of High Island.

2011: (British Columbia, Canada) Harley Davidson motorcycle washed ashore from the Japan Tsunami

2011: (Miami, Florida) U.S. Navy training mine was discovered on Miami beach

Image: LifeBuzz

2011 (Florida) Grand Piano found on beach.

2011: ‘Supermoon’ high tide washed up 100 live WWII bombs onto a Hampshire beach.

2011 (Portsmouth, UK) A giant ET that was stolen washed ashore.

2011: Cornish cricket players found their makeshift ‘driftwood’ cricket bat was actually the 300-year-old leg bone of a long-dead shipwrecked sailor.

2011 (Florida) Giant Lego Man:  one such figure showed up on Siesta Key in Sarasota

2012: Oldest message in a bottle: Capt. C. Hunter Brown of the Glasgow School of Navigation set bottle number 646B adrift, along with 1,889 others, on June 10, 1914. (National Geographic)

2012: (New Jersey) 57 letters from WWII from a woman to her boyfriend was found on a beach after Hurricane Sandy

2012: (Puerto Rico)  NES system with a game stuck in it washed up on the beach.

2012: (Alaska) plastic fly swats were found from a container ship.

2012 (St. Petersburg, Florida) Severed limb from missing person Kelly Moriarty.

2013: (UK) 6lb lump of ambergris that sold at auction for over $16,000 USD

2013: (Florida) $7.5M in cocaine washes onto St. Johns beaches.

Image: Wikipedia

2013. (Japan) A Japanese man discovered four backpacks carrying 80 kilograms of cocaine. Estimated to be worth around $48 million.

2014: (Wales, UK) Heavy winter storms eroded the sand on this Welsh beach to reveal a forest dating back over 4,500 years.  The Forest of Borth includes stumps, of oak and pines. Is this part of the ancient kingdom, Cantre’r Gwaelod, which was said to be lost beneath the sea. Could be as in 2012, preserved human and animal footprints were found on the beach, as well as ancient hearth stones and a timber walkway have been discovered.

2015: (Indialantic, Florida) thousands of vacuum-sealed cans of Cafe Bustelo coffee washed ashore.

2015: (Galveston, Texas) 6 pounds of cocaine found on beach would sell for more than $3.5 million. This was the 6th bundle of drugs washed ashore that week.

2016 (Juno, Florida) Teenagers returns $1500 found on Beach.

2017: (Martha’s Vineyard) 100-pound photo flash bomb was found in June.

2017: (Hilton Head, South Carolina), large red buoy was washed ashore by Hurricane Erma

2017 (Freeport, Texas) Space Debris.  A piece from a rocket that was used to send supplies to the International Space Station. The rocket was launched in French Guinea.

2017: (Norfolk, UK): Plastic pipes were washed up on the sands between Winterton-on-Sea and Sea Palling. The Pipes ewre 1,570 feet and had an 8-foot diameter came loose from Norwegian tugs bound for Algeria following an accident with an Icelandic container ship. (Source)

2017: (South Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida) Missing body part (First Coast News)

2018: (Australia) A cargo ship en route from Taiwan to Sydney lost 83 containers after sea swells tossed the vessel. CNN’s Natalie Allen reports diapers, surgical masks and sanitary products are washing up on Australian beaches

2018: (Devon, UK) Two unexploded bombs in March after Storm Emma discovered at beach-Slapton in Devon.

2018: (Khabarovsk, Siberia) A Fisherman discovered 54 severed hands which had washed ashore.

That is all well and good, but what about Beach Clean Ups?

Weirdest Beach Finds Globally in 2012

Weirdest Beach Finds in 2013

The Weirdest Ocean Finds (By the Number) 2017

• 9,065 appliances 
• 87 mattresses
• 38 toilets
• 28 barbecues
• 17 television sets
• 15 irons
• 14 couches
• 13 chairs
• 12 brooms
• 7 fake plants
• 5 pasta strainers
• 4 frying pans
• 3 hot tubs
• 2.5 bird baths
• 2 lawn mowers
• 1 leaf blower
• 1 ladder
• 1 kitchen table

Huntington Beach, California (2017) 

• wigs
• wheelchair
• clothing including 100 single socks
• knives
• flute.

Los Angeles, California (2014) Source

• piece of a semi-automatic gun
• an intact handgun
• four octopuses and “at least 100 crabs” tangled up in man-made trash
• horse saddle and cash register (Agoura Hills)
• manhole cover (Compton Creek)
• video promoting a transgender beauty queen contest (LA River)
• Pepsi can from 1994 (King Harbor)
  unopened bottle of the fine, under-$5 sparkling wine Andre
• Small religious statuary

New Jersey 2015

• a parking meter
• a hearing aid,
• a badminton racket
• a light-up snowman
• a stun gun have in common?

New Jersey 2017

• A lawn mower
• A saw blade
• An empty medical marijuana container
• A strobe light
• A birdcage
• Two fire extinguishers
• A plastic statue of the Hindu god Vishnu
• A cheese grater
• A human tooth in a box
• Blood vials
• Dentures
• A knee brace
• Pill bottles
• A surgical mask
• A bottle of eye drops
• A full jug of milk
• A jar of honey
• A coffee maker
• An oregano jar
• Zucchini
• Raw chicken pieces
• Acrylic nails
• A bag of costume jewelry
• A belly ring
• A fake mustache
• A mascara brush
• A mermaid purse
• Nail clippers
• Perfume samples
• Shampoo pump
• 19 car batteries
• 204 tires
• 43 large 55-gallon drums
• 361 condoms
• 4,080 tampons

Rockland, New York 

• A big plastic duck head
• Racing bicycle
• iPhone
• Chicken wings
• Mailbox
• Lawn mower
• Black lace panties
• Toilet
• VCR tapes

Texas 

• 2016: 10-pound iron bar, Two 20-foot PVC pipes, Japanese cigarettes in a can, a fake mustache, a toilet seat, a banana magnet, 2 washing machines,  dead rattlesnake inside an old tire, Car bumper, Dog house,Doll parts, Hand cuffs, Hair Rollers, Jock strap and cup, Jumper cables, Outdoor panel of car door, Laundry Basket, Pet bed, Printer cartridge, Propane bottles, Recliner, Refrigerator, Shotgun shells,Tackle box, sleeper couch, Tent, Toothpaste, toothbrushes, Wetsuit,Women’s high heeled shoe (Source) 
• 2012;  A bowling ball,  A hazmat mask, aluminum hand-held grenade launcher ,A bottle with two Cuban IDs inside

UK

• 1 bottle of sun lotion from the 50s priced in shillings, a crisp bag from 1971 and a packet of biscuits from the 1980s: Decades-old plastic is uncovered after storms washed away sand on Cornish beach (Daily Mail)

Halifax, Canada

• Lego pieces, a plastic bowling ball, a plastic rabbit, a baby rattle, parts of a toy fire truck and several dolls. An aquarium and a complete make-up kit bag were also discovered washed up on the national historic site. (Source) 

Bottom line, and this is sick.. none of these are that unusual to me. It just goes to show you that people all over the world trash the ocean.

More Reading

• National Geographic: Messages in Bottles 
• Oldest Messages in Bottles 
• Most Bizarre Beach Finds
• Cocaine galore! Villagers live it up on profits from ‘white lobster’ (2007)