Beach Glass in Provincetown

 

We drove to Cape Cod last weekend to look at a vintage 19' Aquasport Osprey Dual to use as a tender to the 41' DeFever Trunk Cabin Trawler Verandah which is home to bostonharbor.com . It was well worth the trip: TT Verandah will be delivered to Boston in late April - just in time for flounder season and early striped bass fishing.

We stopped along the way to pick up some great fried clams at Mac's Fish House and Market (whole clams, not strips!), buy pickling spice and Herbs de Provence at Atlantic Spice Company and a few things for the galley at Utilities.

 We also stopped to take a few photographs of Cape Cod in the late winter before the crowds arrived, including this photo of the harbor at low tide from the East End.

As I headed back to the car, I notice what appeared to be small "nests" of sea glass trapped in the rip-rap by the side of the road.

 

Some of it was recent but some of it was quite old, including some vintage bottle rounds and turquoise art glass. I even found a piece of green "fire glass'" and a few lovely pieces of extremely rare lavender glass from the 1940's, which was originally green (like a Coke bottle) before the dye faded away.

(The original colorfast green dye was made by the German chemical company IG Farben who manufactured Zyklon B gas for the Nazi death camps and was unavailable during the war years. But that's a story for another day.)

So how did it get there? I have seen similar troves of glass and pottery in small depressions in the rocks at the wrack line at Spectacle Island, where it develops a patina as it spins and spins in the surf. I have also seen similar caches of glass near storm drains and abandoned industrial sites in the city.

It is possible that this glass was tossed by a wicked bad storm on a wicked high tide, and trapped at the side of the road. It is also possible (and perhaps more likely) that it was placed there by someone who gathered it on the beach and put it in small piles for people to discover and enjoy.

I took a few small pieces for further research to document the find, which will eventually end up on display in my rescue turtle tank which you can watch here. But I left most of it on the beach for others to discover and enjoy.

Real beach glass is increasingly rare, a shared treasure that is getting harder to find in these plastic times.  

(At the suggestion of former Boston Globe reporter Beth Daley, who is now editor The Conversation US, I personally have been doing my part to alleviate the shortage of blue beach glass by carefully "releasing" Sky Vodka bottles to the sea for nearly 20 years. After all, glass is made from silica - which is made from sand. But that's a story for another day.)

Take it from one who knows. Beach glass looks much better on the beach - or on public display - than it does buried in a shoe box in a dresser drawer or as part of a craft project. If you are going to gather it, follow the rules. It is against the law to "harvest" beach glass from state and national parks - like Spectacle Island. 

As you walk the beach this year look for treasures in the sand, use this great chart for reference - and please share your photos with Boston Harbor on Facebook.

See you on Boston Harbor, the beach or the islands soon.

B-