Sea Glass Beach

Fort Bragg, California---One thing about this road trip is the idea that I can pull over whenever I come upon something that looks interesting; like White Sands National Monument in New Mexico. The other thing is I can go to a destination just for the sheer fact that I want to see it; like Sedona, Arizona. It doesn’t have to be on the way to somewhere else, it can become a destination.

This is true about Glass Beach. I had read about it a long time ago and it seemed close enough on the map so I decided to make it a destination. It turned out to be the farthest north I will go in California. I will have to skip Oregon and Washington State due to time and budget. I know I’m missing a lot. Another day I hope.

But Glass Beach fascinated me because I love rocks and I love beach glass. I picked it up all around the world and weighted down the sailboat, much to the Captain’s chagrin. Leaving Napa I also decided to take the second coastal drive along the North Coast of California. It took about 8 hours to drive it all but it was well worth it. I stopped several times to enjoy where I was including some really cool small towns in the forests before I hit the coastal highway.

The history of this area is that it was the city dump site starting on the beaches from 1902 to the 1960's. Between the area's people and the pounding waves, the beach was cleaned but the broken glass remained and was polished through the ages.

I finally reaching Fort Bragg at 5:30pm and wanted to find Glass Beach before the sun went down. It was easy to find on the north end of town on Glass Beach Drive. Dah.  

But the first thing that happened was on the trail to the beach, I spotted a big sign saying no picking up glass from the beach. BUMMER. Gone were my thoughts of loading my Hyundai with pounds of beach glass, which I would have justified although you can buy it at Pier One for much less than the cost of the extra gas mileage the weight would cause.

Second was the incredible foul smell of rotting sea plants that lined the beach and attracted hundreds of squawking seagulls.

Then as I looked for this so called sea glass on Sea Glass Beach I was looking for sizeable chunks. Instead I realized that the sea glass was there and it was kind of beautiful but it was as tiny as many of the particles of sand and stones.  None of my research had explained that. Perhaps there are other sites but most of this part of California beaches are cliffs with huge rocks along the coast not walkable sandy beaches.

The area had a lot of other things to do, but since I was limited on time, it was just a stopover.

Sea Glass Beach was a disappointment. But it will represent the destination that I went to, just because I could.