Winter Beach Combing, Glass Beach and Other Random Thoughts

This year, "winter beach combing" has not even felt much like winter beach combing.

It has been remarkably mild here in the Pacific Northwest-- to such an extent that several ski resorts in the nearby Cascades have simply "thrown in the towel" because there was no snow-- only mud. The part of me that's a gardener is a little concerned because "zero snowpack" at a time of the year where there's normally 150+ inches of snow on the ground (in the mountains) holds scary prospects for the water supply during the summer ahead.

Of course, it has been raining quite a lot... but rainwater in a reservoir is a different type of resource than snow being "held" on a mountainside, to gradually trickle down during the late spring and early summer.

Of course, the milder weather has made beach combing a more pleasant experience than usual, this winter. I have had no outings with snow and icicles forming in my beard! That's a plus, for sure...

From time to time, I have written articles (elsewhere) about sea glass being a dwindling resource. Trips to the beach this winter bears that out-- there is just less and less to be found.

The other day, I found myself reading someone else's blog post about Glass Beach in Fort Bragg, California, Quite a heated debate followed, in the comments-- there seems to be two schools of thought on the matter of collecting sea glass:

One thought is that sea glass is basically "garbage" and people should feel free to pick up as much as they want, when they walk on the beach.

The opposing view is that sea glass is a true "natural resource" and people should only LOOK, but not TAKE sea glass. Or maybe limit what they pick up to a handful of favorite items.

As a collector and sometime sea glass trader, I guess I fall somewhere in the middle. I feel that people should limit their taking to what they need, and what is "ready."

It does upset me when I see people on our local beaches-- and they are almost invariably "visitors from elsewhere"-- who treat beach combing like it's basically a "strip mining operation," going over every inch of beach with rakes, sifters and trowels, and taking ALL glass, regardless of whether it is broken or "fully cooked."

Of course, to me that's more an issue of not liking "human greed" than anything else. Greed tends to be the destroyer of many things we appreciate... and a simple fact of life seems to be that even if "a little" can be excellent, "a LOT" is not always better... and "a LOT" often is the cause of much unexpected "collateral damage."

The people in Fort Bragg are concerned that their famous "Glass Beach" will be picked over to such a degree there will no longer BE a "Glass Beach." And they'd be right to be concerned... there was once a "Glass Beach" of sorts around here... but there is about 1/10th of the glass on it today, compared to what was there just 10 years ago... almost all of which coincides with the growing popularity of sea glass, around the world.

I've also heard stories and read blog posts about people who have traveled to some place "known for sea glass," bringing with them two empty suitcases and then feeling all proud and pleased with themselves for "sending home 80lbs of sea glass." It leaves me scratching my head and wanting to ask the question "Are you actually going to DO something with all that glass... or did you just cave in to an unhealthy addiction to pathological hoarding?"

In spite of having been a sea glass collector and beach comber since childhood, and being a seller of sea glass on eBay and Etsy, I don't actually have that much sea glass... perhaps because I limit myself to picking up pieces I find pretty, or interesting, or "worthwhile..." whatever that means.

Of course, I don't claim to be "expert" on anything... I just know (from other areas of interest) from experience the damage that can be done as a result of a hobby or pastime being "overexposed."

First Beach Day of 2013!

Yesterday marked my first day to get out on the beach in the new year. Winter beach combing tends to be tricky as the days are short, the weather often horrible and the "good" low tides occur after dark.

Thursday marked the first day within a very short "window of opportunity" where I could get "out there" and back during daylight hours. Even so, it tends to be a mad dash (aka an almost 4-mile "racewalk") to get where I need to go, followed by brief beach combing, followed by another racewalk in the fading light, back to where I started.

Thankfully, it was a clear sunny day, which not only made the outing more pleasant... but added a good 20-30 minutes to the amount of available daylight. It was also on the cold side-- that white stuff in the photo is a thin layer of ice/snow from the previous day.

The beach where I generally beach comb is backed by a tall escarpment on the "land" side. Unlike many waterfront area, these sometimes 400-foot tall banks are not cliffs (aka "rock") but compacted clay and sand, deposited there by glaciers during the last ice age. It's odd to think that the beach where I now walk once upon a time had an estimated 3000 feet of ice on top of it.

These slopes are not exactly the most stable landscape on the planet, especially during the time of the year where it often rains, freezes and thaws... over and over. Slides are frequent, and can sometimes completely block the way for weeks, until a good storm spreads the debris. Since this is not a "maintained" beach, nature simply has to take its course.

Indeed, I encountered a fairly new slide; this one fairly "minor" (comparatively speaking) and partly washed away by winter storms. "Minor" is perhaps a relative term-- meaning only about 5,000 tons of clay and sand came down, as opposed to 100,000 tons for a major collapse. I've experienced one of these "erosion events" up close and personal (from a few hundred feet away) and it sounds like a freight train coming at you as the slope gives way and a blend of clay, sand and rocks throws around 75-foot trees like match sticks. The beach truly is "alive."

These slides are not a good thing for the sea glass hunter. Not so much because they are dangerous, but because the layer containing recent garbage (and sea glass) ends up being covered by a 3-foot thick layer of "virgin" sand from thousands of years ago... and it will take years of storms and waves before the sand is moved and mixed enough for the sea glass to surface, once again.

Resigned to finding little, I instead took time to enjoy my surroundings-- a superb view of Mt. Baker on a clear day, wearing a thick coat of fresh snow.

Although it seldom snows significantly here at sea level, we are surrounded by snow covered mountains, many of them with white caps all year long. It makes for spectacular surroundings-- and I often have to remind myself to look UP from the beach and take in the beauty that surrounds me. It's easy to get completely wrapped up in the business of looking for little pieces of glass!

Lots of ducks spend the winter here or pass through on their migratory path.

I don't know the names of them all, but sometimes the shallows are literally covered with thousands and thousands of birds. Although most are distinctly "northern" birds, I have also seen a few flocks of brown pelicans fly by.

Fortunately, not all the beach was covered with new sand, so my fears of returning empty-handed were unfounded. I managed to get in just under two hours in one of my favorite spots... and even though the pickings were somewhat slim, I did manage to come away with a few interesting and colorful treasures.

Unfortunately "overpicking" continues to be an issue around these parts-- however, there is not much one can do about that, given the increasing awareness and popularity of sea glass. I just wish people would develop some better "beach combing etiquette" and at least throw back the obviously damaged pieces so they can finish "cooking," and be enjoyed by future generations of beach combers.

All in all, though, I was grateful to be back on the beach-- for the first time since late October. I came home with a few nice pieces (the best pictured at left) and had a lovely walk on a gorgeous winter day. I am looking forward to the next opportunity to get out on a day with "decent" tides, which is going to come around later this month.

Till then, I hope your beach combing endeavors go well, wherever you may be. Happy New Year!

Wintry Mix...

There's not much beach combing around here... during the month of November.

I decided to brave the elements because I wanted to see what had washed up after recent storms, and today offered one of the few tiny windows of opportunity for a beach trip... with a slight dip in the tide level starting around 2:30pm... and continuing till dark, which occurs about 4:30 these days.

It has become rather wintry in the Northwest, over the past couple of weeks. Amazing fall foliage has given way to bare trees, cold rain and high winds. As I made may way to the parking lot by the beach, I didn't realize that it had also snowed a bit, overnight.

There are a lot of "microclimates" at the end of our peninsula. I have often seen it be completely dry at our house, only to find a day of pouring rain-- or snow-- in town, less than three miles away. Today it seemed like the central ridge got 1-2 inches of snow, while nowhere else did.

Being the weekend, there were lots of cars in the parking lot. However, I expect most of them belonged to people taking their dogs to the adjacent state park.

The tide was still very high as I set out-- only a narrow band of large rocks separated me from the waves... and it made going very slow. I think of this as an "ankle breaker" beach, and I did not look forward to making a 3.5 mile trek along that type of footing. And things did not improve. After about 15 minutes of slow going, I realized that the storms had not only "rearranged" the beach... but had also beaten the offshore kelp forests to bits, and now I found myself waking on large rocks covered with a six inch layer of slippery seaweed.

This didn't bode well for my day. Even if the retreating tide were to leave behind a decent expanse of beach, a thick layer of seaweed makes it all but impossible to get to any washed-up treasures. The fact that I was probably the only one beach combing today offered little consolation.

A large vibrant deep turquoise glass bead

Fortunately, my favorite stretch of beach-- which it took me almost two hours to reach-- was not entirely covered by seaweed. Sadly, though, the long time it had taken me to get there also meant that I had less than 90 minutes before I started to lose the light.

As the light fades, the darker colors become invisible first, and eventually the only thing you can make out are the clear pieces, which look a bit like moonstones in the semi-darkness. One exception to this is the fairly rare "vaseline glass," a pale lime green which seems almost "illuminated from within," in low light.

In the end, the findings of the day were fairly modest-- the storms had not turned up large volumes of new treasure, and I'm beginning to think that maybe this piece of beach has simply been "picked clean," largely as a result of the repeated "exposure" from newspaper articles. A "secret" doesn't remain a secret for very long if everyone knows about it-- if you know what I mean.

A few highlights of the day included a large bright turquoise oval bead (pictured above) in perfect condition-- with the hole intact and free of sand-- a nice find, and in a rare color. I also found a nice aquamarine "cat's eye" glass marble, a larger piece of pastel yellow (the only "rare" colored piece of the day) and a large (about 1 1/2" long) clear "egg" piece. I can only speculate as to its origins-- perhaps a finial or "knop" from some kind of glass serving dish? It was perfectly symmetrical, and in lovely frosted condition. Who says clear sea glass can't be interesting?!?!

The remainder of the day's finding were quite "ordinary" and now await sorting, at some future date. I had hoped to find more large pieces-- often the case after a storm-- but most pieces I saw were quite small, and uncommon colors were few and far between. There also seems to be a lot of damaged/chipped pieces-- which I always throw back, so they can "cook fully."

Of course, there is more to beach combing than merely "finding sea glass." I go for the exercise and fresh air, as well as for the cathartic and meditative qualities of being on the beach for several hours. As I turned around to head back home (around 4:00pm), I was treated to a beautiful winter sunset, and the sound of bald eagles in the treetops, settling in for the night.

It was quite dark by the time I made it back to the parking lot at 5:45. The last half hour was very slow going, not only because my legs were tired, but because the footing on softball sized rocks covered in wet seaweed-- in the dark-- was treacherous.

This will probably be the last (and only!) time I get to beach comb, this month. The tide/daylight combination is about at its most unfavorable for beach combing, at the moment. There will be a very small window of opportunity again at the beginning of December... and unless the weather is absolutely horrible, I will be out there, looking to sea what new treasures the ocean has washed up!

Winter Sea Glass Collecting

First post of 2008. Happy New Year!

If you live in the northern hemisphere, collecting sea glass in the winter can be somewhat of a challenge. Not only are you dealing with a high likelihood of inclement weather, but the days are short and typically the highest tides are during daylight hours, and the low tides occur in the middle of the night.

I went to the beach exactly twice in December, and found very little of interest. Some of the better and more interesting items will end up on eBay, later this month.

Happily, there are some better days (tide-wise) coming up towards the middle of January, and I just hope the weather isn't completely horrible. Spending three hours on the beach with rain being driven into my face at 25mph, while the temperature is about 40 (4C) is really not my idea of a fun time.