This past Saturday was a rare day indeed. We arrived on LBI shortly before noon to see the mass exodus of renters, as they made room for the thousands of new renters just starting their vacations (yes Rt72, was backed up for miles, and luckily, the back roads were smooth sailing)
Almost always, this means a less than full beach and that is exactly what we found! Some fairly wide open areas made up of mostly year-round citizens of the island. The water was warm, and we were arriving smack in the middle of low tide...perfect for a little sea glassing!
While I watched my youngest venture out beyond the sandbar, my DH headed south to an area that has turned up some pretty pieces in past summers (DH swears that heading south on the island- no matter what part of the island we are on, offers the best opps for sea glassing)My DH came strolling back with 4 pieces of sea glass, and since our sons were just getting out of the water, we ventured north to check out the shell beds in the surf.
These beds turned up pretty much empty...a piece or two of small browns, a couple of "undercooked" pieces, nothing special...so north bound we continued, and as we passed a jetty we noticed a HUGE pile of shells along the jetty and up on the beach along the high tide line...and I mean H U G E! A few inches deep, and several feet wide...3 big collections that were apparently left behind by what must have been an especially powerful high tide...and this collection of shells was found nowhere else on the beach...and we walked several blocks and never even came across a sign that anything like this would be possible on this day (I had not seen a collections of shells on LBI in a couple years, and that was immediately after a severe Nor'eastern that coincided with a New Moon)
So as my oldest son and my DH checked down by the surf, my youngest son and I searched the largest of the shell beds... all while the tide was rising to reclaim the shells it had left earlier. As the waves came up and reclaimed a bit of the shell bed, I was their to examine what might have been uncovered in the bed, while the surf patrol scooped up what was heading back to the sea. Of course we attracted a couple of locals and several other beachgoers...most of those were there for shells.
After about 30 minutes, I had enough. The crowds around the shell beds were growing to large, and the beds were shrinking. Eventually, I was muscled out of my area (how rude!)and I headed back to our chairs to enjoy lunch, and examine our finds.
My DH stayed behind long enough to see a local pick up a nice cobalt piece (the first he's ever seen on this stretch of beach) and as the waves reached further up the beach, he found a nice piece of an old Coke bottle, and a well-frosted piece of what appears to be an old ketchup bottle.
In a short 30 minute span, we found more sea glass on the beach than we had found in the last 5 or 6 months! The Sea Glass Gods smiled upon us on this day, when they left behind those huge shell piles mixed with sea glass. Several of us scooped up pieces that were several decades old...and just as quickly as those shell beds were left, the sea came back to take them away.
I cannot remember the last time I found this many pieces during the summer...and on a bright sunny day! I'm off to take some pictures of a couple new creations, and I'll take a few pix of the weekend finds for my next entry.
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