News of The Abacos

Abaco's Glass Balls
By Jim Kerr - Abaco Life Editor

Flotsam and jetsam. Beach wrack and refuse. If you lack a beachcomber's soul, it's junk.

But if the object drifting ashore in Abaco, Bahamas is a glass ball, the find can be rare and valuable. Anyone lucky enough to have their head down at the right moment, or see the sun glint off a half-buried sphere of green, purple or amber glass, can be sure no one before them has spotted this unlikely treasure.

Glass balls, once used by Portuguese or Japanese fishermen as net floats, sometimes drift thousands of miles across the open Atlantic to Abaco beaches. For years, locals have adorned their porches, decorated fences, looped rafters and fitted furniture with these ocean drifters. Now increasingly rare in the age of plastic, they command high prices - when they can be found.

Glass balls about five inches in diameter used by the Portuguese, and a 12-inch in diameter version used by the Japanese in the South Atlantic and Caribbean, broke away from nets in storms and floated ashore by the thousands in the 1960s. They were so worthless and plentiful that Abaco children on their way home from school took turns smashing them on the rocks, and beachcombers casually tossed them into the dunes and brush.

When the fishing fleets disappeared from the Atlantic and Caribbean in the 1970s and 80s, however, people began collecting them, and today a well-abraded ball faded to pale lavender or honey yellow by the blazing sun can fetch $100 or more. The smaller ones range from deep bottle and olive green to pale and subtle shades of turquoise and muted blue. The bigger ones, now considered primo prizes, can be a milky purple or almost opaque green. Hanging from a porch, they signify a kind of island elegance and decorum, giving the owner a visible status symbol.

Dave Gale, who has lived here since 1954, used to collect them by the gunny sack on weekend expeditions. His self-constructed home atop a hill on Parrot Cay has hundreds of glass balls lining the walkways, built into patio furniture and hanging like plants from trees and sun decks. "For me, the thrill and delight of finding a glass ball never fades or wanes," says Gale. "As many as I've found, I never fail to wonder: where did it float from to get here; how long has it been adrift; what route did it take."

They are rarely found these days on populated cays, except by very early beachcombers the morning after a storm. However, less inhabited barrier islands like Tilloo Cay and Sandy Cay south of Hope Town have been known to yield a glass ball or two on occasion. It may be flotsam or junk to some, but it's a prize piece of floating history to others.

Jim Kerr

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