A Beachcomber’s View: ‘You just gotta go, and you gotta pick it up’

Last week on a beachcombing adventure I found a beautiful piece of seaglass. It is so grand I felt that it needed its own article.

My boyfriend and I decided to stop by the beach on our way back home from doing some errands. Before we could even get to the actual sand, he retrieved a huge plastic tarp that had blown off a vehicle and was stuck in the bushes leading to the ocean. The tarp was so large it almost completely filled my backpack right out of the gate.

Once we crossed the threshold of the dunes, the warmth of the bright sun lighting up our faces, we paused for a moment to give thanks for it all. Days like this in March, where there is a slight breeze but it’s not too chilly, and there is footprint-free sand for as far as the eye can see, is what a beach lover longs for.

As for me, a beachcomber, in addition to all those beautiful aspects of the beach, I wished there were huge shell pits scattered throughout the shoreline, but on this day, the beach was nothing but fresh clean sand.

We continued walking down towards the water, collecting random pieces of plastic like a balloon, a fishing line with a hook and weight that we untangled from a huge chunk of seaweed, and a couple more random pieces of trash. My boyfriend came up to me and stuffed a few more pieces of plastic into my backpack and said that he was so happy to see the water, and I felt the same. The past month has flown by for us, and we felt like we hadn’t spent enough time at the beach together, and it was wonderful to be there, even though there weren’t any shell pits to hunt for treasures.

Recently, I have been finding myself disappointed in the lack of treasures, as well as an increase in the number of beachcombers, but not an increase in trash collecting.

To me, and the people I go beachcombing with, picking up trash is 100% part of the experience. I have said it once and I will forever say it: You will find more treasures – maybe even better and more exciting treasures – when you pick up trash. This proved to be one of those days.

Technically, seaglass is trash and some would argue that it is nothing more than that, but to people like me, it might as well be gemstones. I actually like to think of seaglass as gemstones of the ocean, coming in a rainbow of colors, after being beautifully transformed from a shard of glass to a polished piece.

On this day, it didn’t matter what we found, even if it was nothing, because I was alive and living, with my toes in the sand and face towards the sun on a tranquil ribbon of sand, bordering the Atlantic Ocean, on amazing planet Earth!

We continued walking together when I noticed a bubbly-looking pale grey rock between the high tide line and the dunes.

February gave us some serious wave action and there was evidence on the beach of very high tide lines. Dried-up seaweed and old driftwood stretched down the beach higher than the current tide lines, so I walked up to retrieve my rock when I noticed another lovely rock sitting a couple more steps higher than the first one. Naturally, I said to myself, I want that rock too.

My boyfriend doesn’t love rocks like I do, so he wasn’t very interested in my finds, and started to walk away. Well, when I picked up the second rock, I screamed.

“IT’S NOT A ROCK!” is what I managed to yell out before I fell flat down on the warm sand. 

In my hand was the heaviest, thickest, and completely worn piece of green seaglass I had ever found!

In an instant, I felt so much gratitude, so much peace and happiness, just from one piece of seaglass – a piece that completely fooled me. I like to think of myself as somewhat of a seaglass expert and have a keen eye for spying seaglass on the beach. I have hundreds of pieces of black glass that often get mistaken for rocks by less experienced beachcombers, but this piece I was not prepared for.

This piece looks like no other piece I have ever found.

Most seaglass comes from broken bottles, drinking bottles, medicine bottles, cleaning bottles, etc. On rare occasions, seaglass can come from decorative pieces like vases, lanterns, windows, and other unusual items.

I believe this piece is a lens to a channel marker or a buoy marker to indicate “go” for the shipping vessels of the past. It looks so dark laying on the sand, but when it’s held up to the sunlight, it shines a vibrant green, (because if it is a chunk of a lens, then light was supposed to shine right through it.)

One side – the front side – is slightly convex and extremely smooth. It’s one of the most smoothed seaglass surfaces I have ever touched, especially considering its thickness. Often, the seaglass-forming process takes longer with thick pieces, and they are not often completely frosted. But not this one.

The other side, or the back of it, is textured but not in any pattern. It appears like it was heated many times and then cooled many times over and over again. The textured back does not interfere with the clarity of the light that shines through, so you wouldn’t be able to tell that the piece of glass had texture unless you touched it. A true treasure!

I couldn’t even get up from the sand and my sweet boyfriend had to help me to my feet. We laughed because I always tend to find that one thing, that one treasure that is out there waiting to be found.

This piece probably washed up weeks ago, if not months. It’s hard to say, but based on where it was located, I know it was not a recent washed-up treasure. The wind had blown the dry sand away from it and it sat in the sun, and then along I came with my backpack full of trash.

I have shown many people my new find in recent days and they all asked where I found it, but the thing is that there could be a treasure just like this sitting at your favorite beach.

So, my favorite advice to give is that you just have to go, and you most definitely have to pick it up!

If I hadn’t picked up the first rock I saw that day, well over the millionth rock of my life, it would have never led me to my treasure.

So, go to the beach and pick it up! You never know what treasures are awaiting you. Who knows, maybe you will find a red seaglass lens.

Because if there is a green “go” seaglass piece in existence, then surely there is a red “stop” seaglass chunk that is just waiting to be found. (And you better believe I am on the lookout for it!)

About the Author: Kristin Hissong is a North Carolina native, a UNC Charlotte graduate, an Outer Banks resident of nearly 20 years, and a dedicated, “professional beachcomber.” She has spent more than 20,000 hours walking on both our local shores and shorelines around the Eastern Seaboard, and has collected thousands upon thousands of items from the Atlantic Ocean. 

For the past decades or so, she has been beachcombing on Hatteras and Ocracoke Islands every day, collecting both treasures and trash on her routine expeditions. From typewriters to coffee makers, fishing rods to recliners, if you name it, there’s a good chance she has seen it washed up, and has hauled it back to her collection, or to the closest dumpster.