Sparkling Glass Pebbles On Glass Beach, California

Glass Beach is best viewed at low tide, and it is pocketed with tide pools where sea anemones rest among motley-colored pebbles. Photo by Travis Burke

There is a nice and beautiful beach in Fort Bragg, California, which has lots and lots of pretty and colourful pieces of sea glass sparkling in the sun.

According to Grind TV, Glass Beach in Mendocino County is one of the beaches with most abundant sources of sea glass in the world.

The beach was a public dump until 1960s and in the late 1990s and early 2000s, massive cleanup project were held but glasses and bottles were left behind.

After a long time in the sea and tumbling through the ocean, those bottles and glasses broke into smaller pieces and their sharp edges worn smooth and rounded over time, turning them into something like colourful shining pebbles.

The locals said that the beach used to be covered in a foot of sea glass so smooth you could walk on them with bare feet.

But now there are not as much of the sea glasses on the beach as before because people are collecting them.

Rangers from California State Parks see people taking the smooth, pebble-like glass pieces home in buckets and even in canisters as large as trash cans even though there is a signs that says, “GLASS COLLECTING PROHIBITED”.

I hope I could go there one day before the beautiful sea glass are gone for good and take pictures of them and post them in my blog.

I hope that there is an environmentally friendly, cheap and much faster way for us to turn glasses and bottles that were thrown away everyday into something as beautiful as these sparkling pebbles.

Please click the photos for larger images …

Glass Beach from above and below; photo by Travis Burke

Glass Beach from above; photo by Travis Burke

While Glass Beach is the most popular spot for sea glass in Mendocino County, the area is actually home to two other sea glass beaches. They are both difficult to access, and one of them is surrounded by private land, which is why they are rarely visited. Photo by Travis Burke

Many of the most colorful and beautiful pieces of glass have been stolen from the beach. Photo by Travis Burke

The beach—and Mendocino County—is also a nice place to visit for its natural beauty. Photo by Travis Burke

Stop by the beach any day and you will see people placing glass in plastic bags and canisters. This woman inspects a glass piece for her collection. Photo by Travis Burke

A younger piece of sea glass that hasn’t yet been smoothed out by water and time. Photo by Travis Burke

People tend to ignore the signs that say glass collecting is prohibited. Photo by Travis Burke

Three people look for sea glass; photo by Travis Burke