When we imagine that quiet, warm, golden beach, we don’t usually imagine it to be made of tiny pieces of glass. Actually, most of us don’t want any tiny pieces of glass close to our bare feet. Yet this beach is special. And beautiful in its own way.
The beach at Fort Bragg, better known as The Glass Beach, is located in California, in MacKerricher State Park and owes its name to the thousands of pieces of glossy glass pieces that cover it. These jewel-like pieces of glass are the result of the sea polishing all the glass, porcelain, plastic wraps and other types of waste that were dumped here a long time ago, most of it in the ’60s, by the inhabitants of the area.
In time, a new kind of beach formed and the sea eroded the glass, smoothing and rounding it to tiny bits. Today the town is a tourist attraction visited by thousands of tourists who spend their time combing the beach in search of the perfect sparkling souvenir to take home.
Glass Beach is not the only beach of its kind in the world; other similar half human, half natural oddities are found in Hanapepe, Hawaii, an industrial area near Port Allen Harbor. Originally of basaltic rock, the coast was covered with glass, which, after being shaped by the sea for years, is now offering visitors a strange sight: a vastness of black, white and orange, wet crystals, mixed together with rusted pieces of iron.
Do you know any other glass beaches? Did you ever collect sea glass?
