By the time I made my third beach glass expedition I was feeling very plastic. I had seen every color of plastic on beaches on the east coast. I knew exactly where I could satisfy my desire for beach glass. On Kauai's Glass Beach.
Glass Beach was once the town dump, on the south side of the island, near a power plant and the harbor, Port Allen. I won't describe it any further because someone wrote an article about it last year, and it has been discovered.
Glass Beach is not a destination. There is space to park half a dozen cars, there is no beautiful vista, and it truly is in an industrial area. The glass heats up and radiates warmth, and there is always a chance that a tiny crumb of glass will end up in your foot. But there are buckets and buckets of beautiful multicolored glass.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Beach Glass II
My second adventure in looking for beach glass was in the deep south, on a barrier island off the coast of Georgia. I stayed with family for over a week, in a house on the marsh, or back side of the island, just a block from the Atlantic side. I soon learned to check the tides before going out on the beach, aiming when possible for low tide. This beach was lined with gentle dunes, behind which were very large and some palatial summer homes. Sea turtles nest in these dunes for the one night in which they crawl out of the ocean and deposit their eggs. Residents minimize exterior lights so as not to spoil the habitat, and then mark the nests with poles and signs so that humans don't disturb the eggs.
I fully expected to find lots of beach glass on my low tide walks, but what I found instead was beach plastic. The glass bottles of previous years have largely been replaced by plastic, which can also take a very long time to decompose, but oxidizing plastic has none of the charm of buffed glass.
My low tide walks yielded treasure perhaps greater than beach glass. At the very lowest edge of the tidal cycle I found sand dollars, those romantic echinoderms, sea creatures related to the star fish and the sea urchin. I knew to pick up only those who had alread passed away, leaving a smooth and fragile shell. If I picked up a sand dollar and it had small hairs, like a five o'clock shadow, I returned it to the water, to live another day.
I returned to California with a shoe box of sand dollars wrapped in paper towels, carefully stowing it in the overhead bin of my airplane. Later this fall I will string a red ribbon through each one, carefully date it, and give them to family members who shared that magical island with me.
I fully expected to find lots of beach glass on my low tide walks, but what I found instead was beach plastic. The glass bottles of previous years have largely been replaced by plastic, which can also take a very long time to decompose, but oxidizing plastic has none of the charm of buffed glass.
My low tide walks yielded treasure perhaps greater than beach glass. At the very lowest edge of the tidal cycle I found sand dollars, those romantic echinoderms, sea creatures related to the star fish and the sea urchin. I knew to pick up only those who had alread passed away, leaving a smooth and fragile shell. If I picked up a sand dollar and it had small hairs, like a five o'clock shadow, I returned it to the water, to live another day.
I returned to California with a shoe box of sand dollars wrapped in paper towels, carefully stowing it in the overhead bin of my airplane. Later this fall I will string a red ribbon through each one, carefully date it, and give them to family members who shared that magical island with me.
Beach Glass
My first beach glass adventure last summer was actually beach china. We spent a week after a Boston wedding at the bride's parents house in Dennisport, which is approximately mid-Cape. Our friends chose Dennisport because they can choose between Nantucket Sound beaches and those on the inner claw of the Cape. Because they are homeowners, they can purchase a season sticket for their car to use the beach parking lots. Nonresidents have to pay about $15/day to park, a tax collected by the young people of the town who monitor the parking lots.
So we piled in the car and drove to the south part of the town, to a long narrow beach with a long narrow parking lot. The advantage of this beach, our hosts explained, was the proximity of one's car to the water, especially advantageous when carrying beach umbrellas and picnic baskets.
This beach was shallow and had gentle swells rather than waves, perfect for strolling in ankle deep water. Not many shells, either on the beach or in the clear water. Certainly no beach glass, those shards polished and sanded over many years in the water. But then I found it. A rim of a plate, blue spongeware on cream, almost the size of my palm. It looked old, very old.
I took it to my friends, and said "The lifeguard told me that this is from a wreck that went down in the 1820's. Pieces have been washing ashore every few years since then." They believed me, for a moment.
So we piled in the car and drove to the south part of the town, to a long narrow beach with a long narrow parking lot. The advantage of this beach, our hosts explained, was the proximity of one's car to the water, especially advantageous when carrying beach umbrellas and picnic baskets.
This beach was shallow and had gentle swells rather than waves, perfect for strolling in ankle deep water. Not many shells, either on the beach or in the clear water. Certainly no beach glass, those shards polished and sanded over many years in the water. But then I found it. A rim of a plate, blue spongeware on cream, almost the size of my palm. It looked old, very old.
I took it to my friends, and said "The lifeguard told me that this is from a wreck that went down in the 1820's. Pieces have been washing ashore every few years since then." They believed me, for a moment.
Friday, September 07, 2007
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