Darin and I haven’t been out to the beach on our own since last summer. We usually have our two daughters in tow. It was so peaceful and relaxing to go on our own for a change.

Before we headed out, we grabbed a large Starbucks coffee and a greasy BELT from Tim Horton’s. The 40 minute ride was pure bliss. No screaming children, no panting dog, just the whirl of the wheels and some ambient tunes in the background. I was suddenly transported back to a time when these carefree road trips were the norm. That was seven years ago.

There wasn’t a huge amount of glass today, but we found a few gems. The best one was a huge, smooth and well frosted gray. It will definitely be  one of the stars of my collection.  It’s much too large to make jewelry with, but it will make a beautiful display piece.

I was looking up gray sea glass in Richard LaMotte’s Pure Sea Glass. LaMotte writes:

“Gray colored glass is especially atypical, as it was often an undesirable by-product resulting from what was originally intended to be clear glass. Manganese was commonly used to remove the green or blue color created naturally from iron impurities in the sand, but if both copper and iron were present, the collective elements could slowly develop a gray tint.”

He goes on to say that “well-worn shards of this glass may date to before the early 1900s.”

I’m quite lucky that I picked it up. It’s so well frosted that it looked like a stone. The true beauty and depth of the glass comes through when it’s wet and the sun is gleaming through it.  In this form it has a blueish, violet tinge. Stunning –  as you can see from the photo that I shot today at the beach.