Sea Glass

They say you should have a hobby in retirement but I don’t know when a hobby becomes an obsession.  Thanks to other friends on the island we have met, we have become dedicated to looking for sea glass.  Sea glass is actually pieces of broken bottles that have been tossed under the ocean for several years.  In most cases they have been smoothed and pitted by the rocks and water and actually look like little gems.  (I know that in many cultures they would be considered trash)  Sea glass comes in multiple colors with green, white, and brown being the most common but we have also found blue and amber.  We have found several locations around the island where these “gems” wash up on the shore.  It is usually in a location that is not hospitable to normal beach relaxation (it seems they usually wash up on rocky beaches). 

The main problem is that this hunt for treasures is now affecting our other “hobbies”.  When we are driving around the island we are doing so with the intent of finding good locations for glass.  When we are kayaking around the island we are also looking for remote beaches which would be places where sea glass might wash up.  In fact, one of the best locations we have found was accessible only by kayak.   While I have to admit it has given us a reason to drive and paddle around the island to places we would not normally go … my next question is what are we going to do with all of this glass?!

This is a typical sea glass beach

Different Shades of Green

Blues



Browns and Amber

White

We attempt to identify the origins of the pieces when possible.   According to the Clorox web page, the brown glass in the center was from a Clorox bottle from 1929-30.  If you can help with the other two pieces let us know.

 

 

Visitors

We have been very fortunate with visitors while on the island.  Since we are near the halfway point, I  thought I would also update the visitor’s calendar.  As you can see spots are still "filling quickly” but we can squeeze a few in!  J  Let us know if you are interested.

Flamboyant Trees

It is good to know that life in the island endures even direct hits from Tropical Storms.  It is summertime and the flamboyant trees all over St. John are in bloom.  The flamboyant, also commonly called Royal Poinciana was named for Phillipe de Longviliers de Poincy who is said to have introducing the plant to the Caribbean.  Old time Virgin Islanders say that once upon a time there was a visitor to St. John who was in love with flamboyant trees. This man hired an airplane and flew all over the island dropping flamboyant seeds from the cockpit of the plane and this modern Johnny Appleseed is why the tree can be found in so many inaccessible locations brightening up St. John's verdant hillsides with sprays of red. This one is outside of Caneel and as you can see humans are not the only ones to appreciate its beauty.