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Beachcombing is an activity that consists of an individual "combing" (or searching) the beach and theintertidal zone, looking for things of value, interest or utility. Abeachcomber 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.
The first appearance of the word "beachcombers" in print was inRichard Henry Dana Jr.'sTwo Years Before the Mast (1840) and later referenced inHerman Melville'sOmoo (1847).[1] It described a population of Europeans who lived inSouth Pacific islands, "combing" the beach and nearby water forflotsam, jetsam, or anything else they could use or trade. When a beachcomber became totally dependent upon coastal fishing for his sustenance, or abandoned his original culture and set of values ("went native"), then the term "beachcomber" was synonymous with a criminal, adrifter, or a bum. While the vast majority of beachcombers were simply unemployed sailors, many may have chosen to live in Pacific island communities;[2][3][4] as described byHerman Melville inTypee, orHarry Franck in the bookVagabonding Around the World.
After enduring a voyage of danger and hardship, it was not uncommon for a few sailors to desert awhaling ship when it arrived inTahiti or theMarquesas and reside, at least for a while, in the South Sea islands ofPolynesia. 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 thedeserter, 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.[5] InTypee, Melville deserted, not once but twice, before signing on as a crewman on a Navyfrigate, without fear of repercussions.
Some beachcombers traded between local tribes, and between tribes and visiting ships.Charles Savage led a small group of beachcombers asmercenaries in the service of theBau Island chieftainNaulivou 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 throughshanghaiing. Many, such asDavid Whippy, also served as mediators between hostile native tribes as well as between natives and visiting ships.[6] Whippy deserted his ship in 1820 and lived among thecannibalFijis for the rest of his life.[7] 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 Americanconsul to Fiji, and left many descendants among the islands.[8]
There had always been a small number ofcastaways 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 Englishconvicts who had been transported to Australia and escaped from thepenal colonies there.[9]
It is estimated that in 1850 there were over 2,000 beachcombers throughoutPolynesia andMicronesia.[10] 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 conveyedtattoo styles of the Pacific islands.[11]
The social and commercial role of beachcombers ended when missionaries arrived,[12] and with the growth of a commercial community with European (palagi) traders, resident on each island, who were the representatives of trading companies.[9] Many beachcombers made the transition to becoming island traders.
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InUruguay, a similar term has been naturalized into theSpanish formBichicome. According to folk etymology, the word traces its origins to the English term and refers to poor or lower-class people.[13][14][15] The Spanish form also draws on the similarities to the Spanishbicho (small animal/insect) andcomer (eat). Similarly, the term has entered theGreekslang through sailors, in the form "pitsikómis" (πιτσικόμης). TheRussian word бич (and a rarer form бичкомбер, бичкомер) appeared not later than 1930s, in the sense of temporarily unemployed sailor, hanging about in the port and living from hand to mouth; nowadays it means a vagabond or a hobo.
Inarchaeology the beachcombing lifestyle is associated with coastal shell-middens that sometimes accumulate over many hundreds if not thousands of years. Evidence atKlasies River Caves inSouth Africa, andGulf of Zula inEritrea,[16][17] show that a beachcombing option is one of the earliest activities separating anatomically modern humanHomo sapiens from the ancestral subspecies ofHomo erectus.
Many modern beachcombers follow the "drift lines" or "tide lines" on the beach and are interested in the (mostly natural) objects that the sea casts up. For these people, "beachcombing" is the recreational activity of looking for and finding various curiosities that have washed in with the tide:seashells of every kind,fossils, pottery shards (sea pottery), historical artifacts, sea beans (drift seeds),sea glass (beach glass),driftwood, andmessages in bottles. Items such as lumber, plastics, and all manner of things that have been lost or discarded by seagoing vessels will be collected by some beachcombers, as long as the items are either decorative or useful in some way to the collector. (However, this usually does not include the great bulk ofmarine debris, most of which is neither useful nor decorative.)Edmund James Banfield is an example of the modern beachcomber in his residence onDunk Island in the early twentieth century where he studied and wrote about the vegetation, bird and sea life of the island.[18]
Sophisticated recreational beachcombers use knowledge of how storms, geography, ocean currents, and seasonal events determine the arrival and exposure of rare finds.[19][20] 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.[21] 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 oceanographerCurtis 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).[citation needed]
Along the coast ofBritish Columbia in Canada, beachcombing orlog salvage is the occupation of retrieving stray logs from the sea for resale to the lumber industry. It has been an activity since the 1880s and is still carried out under licence from the province.[22][23][24][25]
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Both the recreational and utilitarian aspects of beachcombing or "wrecking" were celebrated in the filmThe Wrecking Season, an award-winning film that portrays playwrightNick Darke’s passion for beachcombing on the coast ofCornwall,UK.
A popularCanadian family television drama,The Beachcombers, focused on a two-man business salvaging logs from beaches in late-twentieth-centuryBritish Columbia.
In the James Bond filmOn 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".
