Westport South Beach Historical Society brings you #wildfloats2020
The Westport Maritime Museum also holds a wild float release at the beginning of each year, where they take authentic floats and put them back in the ocean in strategically locations so they will wash up on our south beaches where people can find them. “We have worked with our expert ‘float wranglers’ on strategies to get the bulk of the floats to land across a short window on the South Beach’s,” Smith says. “The floats will have small diamond engraved set of initials as well as the year, WSBHS 2020. There’s no way for us to guarantee where the floats will wash up, because it’s nature… but we try to have them wash up on the weekends on the south beaches. Most of them find their way to the beach by the condos and the lighthouse.”
The Maritime Museum uses real floats from Tsunami clean up in Japan and imported back to the USA. We see so many visitors and families that engage in the beachcombing and the tradition of finding a real float and the nostalgia of classic beachcombing memories. We have worked with our expert "float wranglers" on strategies to get the bulk of the floats to land across a short window on the South Beach's. The floats will have small diamond engraved set of initials as well as the year, WSBHS 2020. Finders are asked to record and share their finds on facebook and to tag them as #wildfloats2020 and/or #experiencewestport in any posts or social media. Westport as Washington's "Original Beach Town" is the first and only "real float" event that gets people onto the beaches like the old days and a chance to find and take home a real Japanese glass float.
UPDATE SEPT 2020: This program was slightly interruptd by COVID, but throughout September, October & November, more floats will be sent out into the wild. And the Society will be selecting one lucky Treasure Hunter each week from now through October to win a drawing for an Authentic Float. All you have to do is enter below!