Beachcombers find their treasure in washed-up items from the sea. Items include rubber ducks and diamond rings.

Man looks out over the shoreline. (Unsplash photo)

One man's trash is another's treasure and John Anderson’s trove is filled with items he has found along the Washington coastline.

Beachcombing for the majority of his life, “[Anderson] has curated 46 years’ of pickings in John’s Beachcombing Museum, a two-level warehouse on his Forks property (open summers only) that memorializes a family pastime he has taken to the extreme,” reports Elliott Almond at The Seattle Times.

Every time a ship goes down or a container goes overboard, its contents have to end up somewhere. Many things lost at sea eventually make their way to the Pacific coastline, carried by currents and in this case the North Pacific subtropical gyre, which according to Almond, is a vast circular system of ocean currents.

“The sandy, rocky outposts are a beachcomber’s paradise because the marine mosaic creates a natural seine to trap whatever happens to float past,” Almond said.

Some of the items spilled at sea include 28,800 bath toys and rubber ducks, 34,000 ice hockey gloves and 61,000 pairs of Nikes. Beachcombers found some of these items, as well as six diamond rings found by kids on a school trip, an 1896 silver dollar, the center spinner cone from a Boeing 747 jet engine, and remnants from tsunamis that hit Japan.

Deacon Ritterbush, who authored a book about beachcombing, told Almond, “It [beachcombing] is a portal to everything wonderful in life… It costs nothing, and you wear junk clothes. You’re just slopping it in nature.”

Beachcombing Washington’s 2,337 mile coastline isn’t always fun and games. Almond reports that Anderson has sustained multiple injuries trekking to and from the coast with his pack of treasures.

Anderson told Almond, “People always ask, ‘How many miles do you walk?’... I don’t count miles. I count two rebuilt ankles, two new hips and a back surgery.”