The tide left a line of timber along two kilometres of sand, most of it pallet wood and fence posts, nothing with any history to it. Near the point there was a single piece of oak worn down to the grain, heavy enough that I left it where it lay and went back for it the next morning.
It is drying in the shed now. Six months before it is worth anything.
Nothing is lost at sea, it is only filed somewhere inconvenient.
An old man at the harbour said this to me with complete seriousness, then spent twenty minutes explaining which currents bring what to which beach, and in which month. I understood maybe half of it and believed all of it.
The temptation with weathered wood is always to clean it up. Every piece I sanded in the first year looks like it came from a shop. The ones I left alone still look like they came from the water.
Oil, a cloth, and nothing else. That is the whole method.