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 The glass bottles of previous years have largely been replaced by plastic, which can also take a very long time to decompose, but oxidizing plastic has none of the charm of buffed glass.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.