The "Seeing Sea Glass By The Seashore" Story

Photo from the website telling readers to visit the glass beach.

It was an ordinary day.  We finally found the street sign that said Ele'ele Road with an arrow pointing toward the ocean.  Now the fun will begin.  This all started a few months ago when I was reading an article about visiting Hawaii and the top 10 things you must do while on the islands.  Things such as go to a Luau, take a dinner cruise, visit the Arizona Memorial and oh yeah … visit the Glass Beach.  Never heard of the Glass Beach before so we thought it would be interesting to try and find it.  

This is glass beach.

It is a beach on the island of Kauai near the town of Hanapepe which we just visited.  It allegedly is in an industrial area near Port Allen Harbor.  The beach is a volcanic rock beach, but the sea glass formed after years of discarded glass from the industrial park.  Flasks, windshields, windows and bottles of all kinds and colors had been discarded years ago and the ocean and sand spent almost half a century washing over the glass with the result being pieces of frosted, jelly bean-like pebbles.  

Small and limited treasures were on the beach.

Sea glass is very much in demand today by artists and collectors who find the pieces for jewelry, stained glass windows, mosaics and even sun catchers.  With today's society switching to plastic for just about everything, beach glass is more a rarity than a common find on beaches.  This beach is supposed to be have glass colored blue, brown, aqua, blue and clear.  Well, I followed the sign with the arrow that said Ele'ele Road.  Certainly was an industrial park and I had no idea where the beach might be.  I finally stopped and walked into a massage parlor for directions.  One of the girls knew exactly what I was after and pointed me in the right direction.  

Looking toward the other end of the beach.

Before long we were on an extremely rutted and rocky road in our rental.  Found the cut-off I was told about and after making a turn or two we discovered the beach.   Only problem was so did everyone else.  Few cars parked on the dirt behind the beach, but that didn't matter to us.  We hopped out and began scouring the beach.  Most pieces we found were extremely small, but every so often we found a piece the size of a dime.  I stuffed my finds in my pocket and located a soda can so I could grab a small handful of the sand/glass for my collection.  A half-hour later we were back in the car comparing our finds.  The side trip was more for fun than anything else, but we did find three or four pieces worth keeping.  Beach glass seems to be the same as with anything else.  Times and customs change and over time one treasure disappears to be renewed by another one.  Sad, but the beach glass is one treasure that is slowly disappearing.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.  PS - check out the video of Glass Beach.