MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
If you get out to the beach this summer, and say you've already caught up on all the essential stuff, like listening to all your NPR podcasts, well, NPR's Chad Campbell has a suggestion for a new activity to try.
(SOUNDBITE OF WAVES SWISHING)
CHAD CAMPBELL, BYLINE: People go beachcombing for lots of different things, shells, rocks, driftwood.
A nice piece of bright green.
We're after sea glass.
Giant piece of probably brown, but who knows? You got to pick it up and look.
Ordinary bits of thrown-away broken glass get transformed after decades in the surf.
Here's a nice piece. It's clear, though.
Day and night, the glass tumbles in the waves against the sand and rocks until it's smoothed, frosted, beautiful.
Open up your bag. I can't hold anymore.
I'm on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland with my daughter, Abby Campbell (ph), and with Richard LaMotte, who cofounded the North American Sea Glass Association.
RICHARD LAMOTTE: It's really down to habitation. Where was there a concentration of people living and dumping things?
C CAMPBELL: And you can find it pretty much everywhere, on lakes, rivers, oceans and bays.
LAMOTTE: Sometimes it's not that they washed up there, it's that they'd been uncovered by a wave that maybe came by recently.
C CAMPBELL: Yeah, that's kind of the exciting part. If you don't see anything, wait a second. Wait for the next wave, and it might bring something up or uncover something.
LAMOTTE: (Laughter) Exactly.
ABBY CAMPBELL: I think I just found a red, maybe.
LAMOTTE: Wow, that is a red. Look at that. But that is really rare, to find a red piece. Sometimes it can take people a couple years to find their first piece of red.
C CAMPBELL: Unlike us amateurs, LaMotte can tell a lot by the color, clarity, size and shape.
LAMOTTE: So that's actually kind of the maroon-colored red. And that was popular in the 1950s with the Schlitz bottles. Ruby red is what it was called.
C CAMPBELL: We also find several blue pieces.
Whoa.
LAMOTTE: There you go. Another cobalt.
A CAMPBELL: Yeah.
C CAMPBELL: Which isn't that surprising when you know the local history as well as LaMotte.
LAMOTTE: Back in early 1900s, Maryland Glass was started by Bromo-Seltzer, who made exclusively blue bottles. So it was the No. 1 producer of cobalt blue glass, right directly across the bay from where we are.
C CAMPBELL: What do you think, Abby? Find more good ones?
A CAMPBELL: I love it.
LAMOTTE: Y'all like the sea?
A CAMPBELL: I could spend all day here.
C CAMPBELL: A few days later, on vacation in California, we continue the hunt. On most days, Abby and I hit the beach before sunrise. One day, we skip our low-tide routine to make a sea glass pilgrimage up the coast.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOOR CREAKING)
CASS FORRINGTON: I'm Captain Cass Forrington. And we're at the Sea Glass Museum in Fort Bragg, California.
C CAMPBELL: Captain Cass retired from the Merchant Marines in 1998. A few years later, he started collecting sea glass.
FORRINGTON: It's the only thing man makes and throws away that comes back better than when he first made it.
C CAMPBELL: Behind a display case in the museum's gift shop area, he sells T-shirts, coffee mugs and the sea glass jewelry that he makes.
FORRINGTON: It's just refuse that's been turned into gemstones by the creator (laughter). Nothing goes to waste on the planet, and God hates ugly, so He comes around. Everything gets recycled. It's a treasure hunt. It's always a treasure hunt.
C CAMPBELL: And he has a tip if you want to find your own treasure trove.
FORRINGTON: You go to the local historical society and find out where the dump site was. All water communities used to have water dumps.
C CAMPBELL: Including this coastal community, with the aptly named Glass Beach. It appears totally normal, but what looks like sand and rocks from above is actually all sea glass.
(SOUNDBITE OF WAVES CRASHING)
SHERI ESPINOZA: All different colors. White, green, dark green, amber, blue.
C CAMPBELL: Sheri Espinoza (ph) from Chico, California, says searching for sea glass is a family tradition.
ESPINOZA: The first time was on the Puget Sound. My grandma would take me, and it was just very minimal. Like, if you found five pieces that day, it was amazing. So this is heaven.
C CAMPBELL: The sea glass on your beach may not be this plentiful...
(SOUNDBITE OF GLASS RUSTLING)
C CAMPBELL: ...But remember, whatever you collect started as garbage. One person's trash really is another's treasure.
Chad Campbell, NPR News, on Glass Beach in Fort Bragg, California.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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