A Seaglassing Weekend

It's Labor day weekend and the east and west coasts are enduring passing hurricanes.
The surf is very rough here in New Jersey, and it's turning up the ocean floor. Rough seas, riptides, extreme tides usually equal "ocean treasure" opportunities!

On Wednesday, the shell beds on the beach stretched for nearly a block and the surf was filled with piles of shells...great for finding a few pieces of sea glass. Since Sandy tore thru the Jersey coast nearly 2 years ago, we haven't had shell beds like this on the beach, and the sea glass has all but disappeared.

But, we took advantage of the small crowds, hit the northern end of LBI and hubby and I hit the beds and found about 18 pieces of sea glass. My youngest son brought a nicely finished beer bottle top to us and found a few undercooked pieces. Hubby found a couple really nice greens and a few older browns, one looked quite old and very thick. But the biggest surprises were a few blues...one cobalt and one dark cornflower! They aren't jewelry quality, but they will look great sitting next to a window in a decorative jar.

On Thursday, we arrived at the beach and found that the tides had taken back all of the shell beds and despite a low tide approaching, she left hardly anything for us to search through. So we walked far north than we have before, to find a small area with a huge concentration of shells.

By the time we arrived, there were many people shifting thru the pile, most were looking for interesting shells, but some were searching for sea glass. Since this area was quite large, there was plenty for everyone to look thru, but most of the glass that was there seemed to have held alcohol in it recently (like maybe the night before?)For every 50 pieces we picked up, there was 1 keeper. People picked up anything they could find, calling it "sea glass", when in truth it could have been used as a weapon, or worse yet, cut a young child's foot, had they stepped on some of those shards.

The search was fruitless and I headed back, followed by my hubby and oldest son. As they made their way back, a wave washed a brown bottle top onto the surf, not more than 8 inches from my son's foot and hubby grabbed it. He almost threw it back, but said he could feel the chemical change that causes frosting. It was a good decision, because by the time he got back to our umbrella, the piece was entirely frosted, inside and out.

During the day, we did stumble upon a couple pieces of well tumbled, well-weathered sea glass, again, nothing jewelry quality, but nice for decorative displays. But as quickly as those pieces were presented to us as we walked the beach, the ocean would have just as quickly taken them back. Just as it had reclaimed it's shell beds from the day before.

Even though the ocean appeared much calmer on Thursday, the undertow was still strong and rip currents were still present. Be careful if you enter the water, especially if you are not in an area supervised by a lifeguard. Save me some sea glass and enjoy your long weekend!


'til next time...
R

CreationsByRobin has Reopened!

It's been awhile...a long while and I didn't really know if I was ever going to reopen my shop on Etsy.com.

But a few recent trips to the beach began the itch, and an end-of-the-day find- a jewelry quality soft blue piece of sea glass, pushed me over the edge. I am back after an almost 2 year hiatus!
Hurricane Sandy left the Jersey shore battered and it has recovered nicely. Sandy has hidden all the sea glass, but when the ocean decides to expose the hiding places, I hope to be there...and continue to share them with you and hopefully, recycle them into something special.

I happy to be back, doing what I truly enjoy...walking the beach with my family, looking for ocean treasures!

I Wonder What This Was In It's Previous Life?

I love playing with my sea glass. Taking out a jar or bucket and carefully spreading it out on the table. It's amazing how I can often find a piece that intrigues me...one that that I may have overlooked the last time I looked through them...or perhaps a piece that I scooped up at the beach and didn't pay much attention to when I came across it. Since DH and I are such big fans of blue sea glass, I couldn't believe that we hadn't noticed this piece before and yet somehow this piece has escaped us.

This cobalt blue piece of sea glass is quite different than any I've come across before. In the 2nd image above, there is a raised circular piece with an arrow on it (the image has been enhanced to show the arrow, thus the washed out color of blue) and the reverse (top image...this image shot through a 10x50 magnifying glass for detail...again washing out the color of the glass) shows a pattern of ooooooooo .

While this piece of sea glass will never be mistaken for jewelry quality, it did make for an interesting search for what might have this shard been before it was discarded into the sea. Being a big fan of sea glass, my interest is still piqued and if anyone knows the origin of this piece of deep cobalt blue sea glass, I'd love to hear what it may have been before the ocean got her hands on it.


'til next time...
R

PS- Yes I did a little jewelry-making this weekend also... images for my next blog entry : )

Sea Glassing After A Full Moon

For those that follow this blog, you already know that this is a key week for sea glass hunting. The sun and moon are at their closest points to our planets and with this month's new moon, the tides were much more severe than usual.

In New Jersey, we had a very strong wind from the east on Tuesday. The high tide was extremely high and the area was under flood alerts. Wednesday, saw the winds calm down a little bit and I gambled that low tide would pull out just a bit farther than usual. This year, I made the correct choice, but when I arrived, I thought I missed my chance at some nice pieces.

As I stepped on the beach, it was clear that the public work dept in LBI had been out early repairing the beach after a couple of days of rough high tides. The beach had been torn up, turned over and all of the high tide sea glass buried until the next severe Nor'easter.

But the they could do anything to prevent the moon from pulling the sea out a few extra yards and exposing some of the shell beds that normally sit in a foot or two of salt water. So there they sat, exposed shell beds and a bit farther out, another stretch of shell and rock beds that had the had the tiniest of waves gently washing over them... it was perfect for sea glassing!

We spent about an hour walking back and forth along the same stretch of beach and found more sea glass between tow jetties than we normally find all summer long! Most of the pieces were browns, but they appear to be very old browns because they are quite thick and well-frosted, along with the browns, we found a few amber, several greens & whites...which we expected.

What we didn't expect were the light "Coke bottle" blues, a couple of very pretty soft teals and since hubby drove to what he calls "Cobalt beach", I found 3 cobalts...one that is about 2" in length, over an 1" in width at it's widest point and quite thick. Hubby also found 2 cobalts, one was over an 1" in length and also fairly thick. That is far and away more cobalt sea glass than we've found in New Jersey in the last 2 years!

Most of the sea glass was not jewelry quality (tho we did find a couple that will be wrapped and made into necklaces...and maybe a couple smaller pieces will find their way onto a bracelet or used for earrings) but that is to be expected from Jersey sea glass.

In all, it was a fun trip...the weather wasn't awful, the sun was shining...my face feels a bit wind-burnt...but I'll be having fun washing my finds from this afternoon and hopefully have a few images to share later this week.

'til next time...

R