Beachcombing for sea glass

I was on the south coast of the Llŷn Peninsula in North Wales last week, and had the pleasure of doing some beachcombing near Criccieth. The tide was extremely low (lowest I’ve seen it) giving great conditions for searching for sea glass. The beach is mercifully pretty much clear of plastics, and aside from tumbled bricks and pottery, is sand and shingle. Finding tumbled glass shards in amongst pebbles and slate chippings is tricky, but so rewarding. Here’s an arty shot of the two pieces I found before it started getting too dark to search…

beachcoming sea glassWhat’s sea glass?

For the not so sure, I’m not actually looking for glass from the sea (though that does exist). What I’m looking for is rubbish – shards of broken glass that have been naturally sand tumbled, giving a wonderful pitted, frosted appearance with the translucency still present.

And as I turned round to come back, this is what was behind me. Snowdon is snowcapped to the left, and became gloriously lit by the setting sun – the timing was pure serendipity! Quite an end to my treasure hunt.

Snowdonia

Now all that’s left to do is to come up with a creative use for the bits of glass I’ve found. I have a few more from a week’s beachcombing at Christmas.

4 thoughts on “Beachcombing for sea glass

    • I’ve chosen some suitable pieces and drilled through them ready for wiring up to be pendants. I lost two pieces in the process… even with a diamond drill bit it was a tricky exercise!

  1. I live about half a mile from Mount’s Bay near Penzance and have always collected “sea glass” the majority of which has been formed by the sea from bottles left on the beach. Years ago you could find wondergul bits of dark blue and brown, leftovers from an earlier period. A bit like the old bottle dumps found near derelict cottages (again yeas ago). I too will be interested to see your results.

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