Glass Beach was within walking distance of my motel. I had imagined a wide sandy beach scattered with sea glass.
Nope. The beach is tiny and nearly hidden among the rocky hollows and tide pools. A good photo with perspective is nearly impossible to take. I wore my Keen sandals for easy footing. Every 10 minutes or so I had to stop and empty them of sea glass. It’s hard to imagine walking on top of so much glass and rock.
But I did. My back bent, head down, looking for the elusive blue glass. I could have gathered buckets with a scoop. After all, the sea glass looks good with all those pebbles mixed in. I greedily imagined my entire garden with a rich sea glass mulch.
If you bend down to scoop up a handful this is what you get. It’s that plentiful. Difficult to spot from the bluffs above this little beach, but with a small amount of effort to climb down more sea glass than you can imagine.
So I stayed. Bent over. Occasionally stopping to straighten and look around my tiny cove.
And in the end I carried away about a cup of luminous treasure, not a ton, but enough. Enough to fill a tiny bottle with the smallest glass pebbles and sea water.
With some left over for safekeeping. Glass Beach has an interesting history. You can read about it HERE.
found you thru ginny at small studio. love your blog! i’ve been to this beach too; stayed at the glass beach B&B. beautiful, huh? great photos.
Is it wrong to hyperventilate over a post? I am swooning! Lucky, lucky you.
It’s been awhile since I stopped in for a read of your blog. Beach glass! Cool. I was also going to mention A. Shreve’s book Sea Glass. I think you might enjoy it. I’ve missed you!
Look at those wonderful colours, the blue is a rarity, down under anyway. The only blue we are likely to see are the very tiny blue ringed octopus, pick one of them up and he bites, you’re dead.
So glad you shared your Getaway with us. I did the Army Crawl when I was there…. bending for such a long time to find all the blue bits I could find got tiring. Some of my glass ended up glued onto a Mask~such fun!
mm! This is treasure. There is a glass beach like that on Kauai too. Makes me want to go stay at that little b&B. Is that where you are?
Catching up on your blog posts that I’d missed is like having many desserts at one sitting; mmmm, Tres Leches Cake, Banana Split, Autumn Martini. Love the sewn together flotsam book, the bird canvases, the adventures on Glass Beach, all the adventures of your thrilling, unique life. You give good blog. xo
That aqua green is so perfect as to be almost impossible.
How cool. Looove the glass. Thanks for sharing yet another trip with us. (I was interested in the history, too — I was wondering why so much glass just there….)
This beach looks heavenly. I must make it a point to check it out at some point. What a terrific adventure!!
Practical note; – your little bottle of seawater and glass is likely to go all green and slimy after a while – add a dose of disinfectant and it will stay clear forever.
Have you read ‘Sea Glass’ by Anita Shreve? The whole story is held together by the theme of sea glass and a young woman’s search for blue pieces.
I thought AS had invented this idea. So glad you showed us this.
You certainly know how to find the best of beauty!
my last view before shutting my too hot lap top down for the evening!
Absolutely glorious photos.
I thank you so kindly for sharing them.
I shall dream of sparkling ocean smoothed glass
XO
oooh. my friend Quince is a lapidary who lives in Willits, and she has mentioned this beach to me, but she has never TAKEN me there and she certainly has never taken pictures of it for me. So THANK YOU for all this loveliness!
You certainly know how to relish your vacations…
Wow. Would love to visit Glass Beach one day “when” I come to CA for a visit. How beautiful.
I am SO envious! This looks so wonderful and here I am on the east coast.
susan – i POLADROIDED them first, then rounded the corners. remember POLADROID from my post about paul’s house? it is a little free polaroid maker for MACs. some of them i didn’t POLADROID first – too dark. i also found a way easier way to round corners. that tutorial has a few extra unnecessary steps. in a nutshell (a small nut) it’s round with shape tool, select path, select inverse, edit clear. 4 steps. that’s it! to get the black line i stroked it with 5 pixels of black after CLEARING it.
I was hoping for a Sunday afternoon entry. And one of my persistent appreciations and questions is about your color. Did you mess with it in PS? I know the round corners are from the link you shared earlier. But I am curious about the beautiful ochered corners – is that an “Action” or did you do with overlays or, or, or…
Speaking of glass mulch, it is being used in landscaping medians here. And.. I found a source for you as well – not as romantic as ocean tumbled shards but still purty.
http://www.bourgetbros.com/category_products.php?idcat=559