Product Code Database
Beachcombing is an activity that consists of an individual "combing" (or searching) the beach and the intertidal zone, looking for things of value, interest or utility. A beachcomber is a person who participates in the activity of beachcombing.
Despite these general definitions, beachcombing and beachcomber are words with multiple, but related, meanings that have evolved over time.
After enduring a voyage of danger and hardship, it was not uncommon for a few sailors to desert a whaling ship when it arrived in Tahiti or the Marquesas and reside, at least for a while, in the South Sea islands of Polynesia. If another beachcomber was ready to take his place in order to get home, the captain might let the disgruntled crewman go; otherwise, the captain would offer the natives a reward to find and return the deserter, and deduct the reward, plus interest, from the deserter's pay. In other words, the deserter, if caught, would end up working the entire voyage for no pay at all, or even return home in debt to his employers.ABC Whipple, Yankee Whalers in the South Seas, Doubleday, New York, p 150 In Typee, Melville deserted, not once but twice, before signing on as a crewman on a Navy frigate, without fear of repercussions. Some beachcombers traded between local tribes, and between tribes and visiting ships. Charles Savage led a small group of beachcombers as Mercenary in the service of the Bau Island chieftain Naulivou and quickly showed their worth in fights with his enemies. Some lived on the rewards for deserters, or found replacement crewmen either through persuasion or through shanghaiing. Many, such as David Whippy, also served as mediators between hostile native tribes as well as between natives and visiting ships.Ruth Blair (1996), Typee, (Oxford World's Classics). Introduction xv. Whippy deserted his ship in 1820 and lived among the cannibal for the rest of his life. David Whippy's long journey home (retrieved 19 June 2015) The Fijis would sometimes capture the crew of a stranded ship for ransom, and eat them if they resisted. Whippy would try to rescue them but sometimes found only roasted bones. Ultimately he became American consul to Fiji, and left many descendants among the islands.ABC Whipple, Yankee Whalers in the South Pacific, Doubleday, New York, p 151
There had always been a small number of in the South Pacific since the earliest Spanish explorers, but the numbers increased dramatically in the early 19th century with the beginning of the whaling era circa 1819. It is estimated that 75% of beachcombers were sailors, particularly whalemen, who had jumped ship. They were predominantly British but with an increasing number of Americans, particularly in Hawaii and the Carolines. Perhaps 20% were English convicts who had been transported to Australia and escaped from the penal colonies there.H. E. Maude, Beachcombers and castaways, The Journal of the Polynesian Society 73: 3 (1964) 254–293
It is estimated that in 1850 there were over 2,000 beachcombers throughout Polynesia and Micronesia.K.R.Howe, Where the Waves Fall: A New South Sea Islands History from First Settlement to Colonial Ruler (1984), 103. The Polynesia and Melanesia communities were usually receptive to beachcombers and castaways who were absorbed into the local community, usually by formal adoption or by marriage, with the beachcombers and castaways often being considered a status symbol of the local chief. Beachcombers who returned to Europe conveyed tattoo styles of the Pacific islands.
The social and commercial role of beachcombers ended when missionaries arrived, and with the growth of a commercial community with European (palagi) traders, resident on each island, who were the representatives of trading companies. Many beachcombers made the transition to becoming island traders.
Sophisticated recreational beachcombers use knowledge of how storms, geography, ocean currents, and seasonal events determine the arrival and exposure of rare finds.Richard LaMotte, Pure Sea Glass, Sea Glass Publishing (2004), 20Chuck and Debbie Robinson, The Art of Shelling Old Squan Village Publishing (1995) 22–23 They also practice eco-conservation and do not kill mollusks for their shells, dig holes in the sand, or gouge cliff faces for fossils or reefs for coral specimens.S. Deacon Ritterbush, A Beachcomber's Odyssey, Vol. I: Treasures from a Collected Past, Ritz Dotter Publishers (2008), 115 Many beachcombers serve as excellent stewards of the seashore, working with government agencies to monitor shore erosion, dumping and pollution, and reef and cliff damage, etc.
Recognized beachcomb experts today include oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer ( Flotsametrics and the Floating World); eco-educator Dr. Deacon Ritterbush ( A Beachcomber’s Odyssey); sea glass experts Richard LaMotte ( Pure Sea Glass) and C.S. Lambert ( Sea Glass Chronicles); geologist Margaret Carruthers ( Beach Stones); shell specialists Chuck and Debbie Robinson ( The Art of Shelling), and zoologist Dr. Blair Witherington and Dawn Witherington, ( Florida's Living Beaches: A Guide for the Curious Beachcomber).
A popular Canada family television drama, The Beachcombers, focused on a two-man business salvaging logs from beaches in late-twentieth-century British Columbia.
In the James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Bond gets two weeks' leave, and when Moneypenny asks him where he is off to, he replies: "just some place to laze about. Beachcombing".
|
|
