We’ve been to the beach at least one day every weekend  — save one that was grey and rainy. The 4th of July long weekend was a treat. for sure.

I’ll be posting pictures of sea glass (and sea-ramic) soon. I took some indoor photos, but they didn’t do things justice. Here is an “action” shot below:

Sea Glass As Its Found

That translucent, greenish, glowing “rock”, just right of dead center, is a piece of soda bottle glass as I found it. Its a piece of a bottle top…the curves are obvious. Its a nice piece of sea glass (I love that color) and I’ll post better pictures later.

Opening Day 2016

@016 Sea Glass Season Opener

It seemed like a long winter, but all is redeemed with the start of sea glass season.

It was absolutely perfect spring beach weather: sunny and not too breezy. There were plenty of people out, but they were mostly sunning themselves. I was one of the few beachcombers.

Sea glass conditions were good. There were a lot of pebble fields and the glass was all where it was supposed to be. Unlike the long day that was the final day of 2015, there was a lot of glass…and a lot of good glass.

Shown are the “best of”. The large clear was my day-maker. This is a great piece — hefty, fully smoothed, and fully frosted. I found it 4 inches away from the blue piece! That blue isn’t great, but blue is so rare (I often find nor more than one piece in a year) that they are all keepers. The two brown pieces are great because they look dusty. In reality, that haze is the glass decomposing. Under a loupe, you can see a crystalline structure which looks like its peeling away. It doesn’t wash off.

It felt good to get some sun and some sea glass!  .

We were in warm weather over the holidays. We were close to the beach, too. The pool was closer, though, and we didn’t make it all the way. So, no holiday sea glass.

That’s okay. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. An unseasonably warm day is coming and that will be a good reason to get out there!

A brown whale. The Picture doesn’t do it justice.

This piece is something extraordinary.

First off, its massive. Its hard to tell from the photo, but its large and heavy. Its so densely brown and thick, it needs a strong light source to illuminate it from behind. It glows, but never lights up.

Second, this was found in an unusual location for us (several years ago). Our normal location is true ocean with surf. This was found way up an ocean bay. This piece of sea glass was found in shallow water, amongst piles of shoe-size rocks. Its a wonder that one of the kids noticed it for what it was. As I recall, it was the only decent piece of the day.

I never thought this location would have the correct conditions to smooth and frost this, but it has been a harbor for hundreds of years. I bet people have been throwing trash into this bay for a long time. This isn’t a modern flimsy beer bottle shard. It looks like time, more than waves, mattered here. We’ll definitely go back to this location.

A better picture of this belongs in the Gallery. I’ll post that at some point.

I had the chance to get to the beach way out of the normal date range. I went just for sea glass and it was worth it, both for the atmospherics and the sea glass itself.

Not The Traditional Sea Glass Conditions

The weather was unseasonably warm that day, but foggy and windy right at the shore. It was bearable for just the two hours we were there – in rain gear. My shell was soaked through from the blowing fog. Its was epic.

There was vastly more material on the beach than I’ve ever seen during the regular season. I don’t know if this is normal for the off season or a pure anomaly.

Hard Won Sea Glass

I did find several great pieces of sea glass, but they were fewer and farther between than I expected and much more work. I feel quite fortunate to have found any, especially any of these particularly good pieces.

The green piece is like a coin: round and flat. Its the best green piece I’ve ever found. I love the coke/soda glass piece. They have such a great glow. The less frosted clear has the ridge of a bottle top, which I enjoy. I found the more frosted clear piece way up from the water sitting right on top of the sand – what my dad would have called a floater. Its an amazing piece. Under a loupe, it looks like its about to shed an outer crystalized layer. This thing has been aging for a long time.

I was hoping to post a picture of my dad’s final hoard. Unfortunately, it was comingled with some other pieces. We do, however, have this piece of which we know he was particularly fond.

Dad’s White Whale

This isn’t the most smoothed piece, but it is pretty large piece. Like virtually everything else, this would have been what he referred to as a “floater” (but not how I would use the term) – and a “whale”. Ribbing is visible in this image. a curvature is not. Given the hand of this piece (including thickness and weight, I bet it was a vase).

Sea Glass In the Background

I haven’t posted in some time. I didn’t feel like writing. I’m the dad of Dad’s Sea Glass Challenge, and MY dad passed away since my last post. The topic isn’t appropriate for this site, but, as a part of the Challenge, it needs to be dealt with and moved on from. He wasn’t one for a lot of glass, but he should did put in the effort!

I’ll post an image of his collection soon, and then move on.

This article from the Smithsonian is great. It skirts an important topic regarding sea glass, though: seeding.

Should we be throwing glass into the ocean to fuel a hobby? I mostly lean towards allowing it. Why? Glass is fairly inert. There is no toxicity. It also doesn’t float and I don’t think dolphins are going to get their beaks caught in bottles. For that matter, maybe the glass should be broken before being “placed”. What more, glass was originally made of sand – and that is where we find sea glass (ocean beach).

If you saw how the glass ends up, and held a piece in you hands, I think you would agree. It would be sad if, in 50 years, there was no more sea glass to find. We need to get started now.

A Special Sea Glass Trip

It’s “pre-season” for us as regards our regular sea glass beach. We use this period of great weather, but less than hard-core beach-going to visit other sea glass shores. Today, we chose a general direction based on some of the public sea glass information out there. In the end we hit two spots in that general vicinity.

A Sea Glass Marble

The first beach was open to the public, but had no “out-of-towner” parking. A classic catch-22 the keeps the crowds down. As it turned out, I parked in off-limits spot and stayed with the car. I was unable to hit the beach, but that’s part of being dad.

The sea glass was mediocre, as it were. One of the kids did have a great find: a sea glass marble. It’s a neat little one – called a “cutie”, I think (it’s 3/8 of an inch in diameter).  It’s got flakes of yellow, white, and green inside. It’s very frosted with some scrapes. I wouldn’t venture a guess as to how old the marble is, but we may try to figure that out. In addition, that one found an earthenware sea-ramic shard.

Sea Glass Shut Out

We were able to park at the second location. I was very excited by the looks of things. There were pebble fields visible along the full 2-mile stretch. The 1/4-mile that we (6 of us) surveyed was barren. Not a piece was found.

I think this was the first time I have ever been shut out. Usually I’ll find at least one piece of sea glass. It may not be great, but I find it.

The true season is just about upon us. We may even get to one of the other “X pieces of jewelry quality sea glass per hour” destinations before the season sets in. I’ll go with tempered expectations, though.

What are Sea-ramics?

Sea-ramics are the porcelain equivalent of sea glass. At some point a plate, cup, etc. – or the broken remains thereof, made its way into the ocean and tumbled for an untold time.

Sea-ramics Seem Rare

As far as I can tell, these pieces are more rare than sea glass – at least at our beach. The “wack” factor in that assessment is the relative plenitude of white rocks and shell bits. These pieces may be as common, or be more so, than sea glass, but its touch to investigate every white “thing” on the beach.

Finding Sea-ramics

I found these pieces of sea-ramics a few years ago. They were very near each other. I haven’t found any others, despite looking consistently. During some outings, I focus exclusively on sea-ramics. I’m hoping I may even find some milk glass sea glass in the process.

In well known “target-rich environments” we’ve found well worn shards of earthenware that have the look of salt-glazed jugs. They frequently have that tan-grey color on one side and brown on the other.