おげんきですか。(O-genki desu ka = How are you?)
Today I ventured north to find Sea Glass Beach.
I was excited to get outside today and have a mini adventure. We were on restricted movement for the last two weekends (basically nothing off-base), plus it was rainy both weekends. And so with gorgeous weather this weekend and lifted restrictions, or at least slightly lifted to “exercise outdoors off-base,” I decided my “exercise” would be walking on a beach and bending over to find sea glass.
That totally counts, right?
I googled “sea glass beach” and the first location google maps attempted to navigate me to resulted in me driving on narrow gravel roads. (I wish I had thought to take a photo of one of those roads, if one could call a narrow gravel path a road.) And while I did see a sign for “Sea Glass Beach,” I never found the supposed trail to the beach, and anyway, I couldn’t find a place to park even if I had seen a trail.
After another search on the map app, I found a second beach called Sea Glass Beach. I found this one with no problem as it didn’t involve narrow gravel roads. I easily found parking nearby and then had a short walk across a bridge to get to the beach.
Within 2 seconds of stepping on the beach, I found sea glass.
The pieces I found aren’t large. The largest one is approximately 2.5″ long and maybe 1″ at its widest point. The colors range from dark brown to white. I found a few teeny cobalt blue pieces, but most were green, white, and brown.
I also found some pretty sea shells, sea rocks and dried coral.
So many sea shells.
I love collecting shells. I have shells from some other travels and when I lived in SoCal. (Shout out for SoCal! I loved living in Long Beach.) So my new Okinawa shells will be a nice addition to my other shells. I just need a new display bowl.
But I did have to be cautious picking up shells. Some of them were already taken. I found quite a few mini critters. So I moved my hunt away from the water and back to the high tide line so I wouldn’t disturb these guys more than I did.
a mini crab and a teeny critter in a shell
I only stayed on the beach about 30 or 40 minutes. First, it’s summer and even at 8:30 am it was already 82°. Combined 80+% humidity and pale skin, even covered with 50 SPF sunscreen, I am super cautious about being in direct sunlight too much.
The drive took me over an hour one-way. Although the drive was only 52km (approx. 32 miles), the maximum speed limit was 50 km/h (approx. 31 MPH). So I had a lovely, leisurely drive.
On the way back, I stopped to take some photos of some incredible views. I can’t get over the amazing ocean color. So blue and clear. It would be nice to have a chauffeur so I could sightsee instead of focusing on driving because the views are amazing! Oh well.
the absolutely gorgeous water views I (safely) stopped to take
Once I got home, I laid out my haul. I collected some pretty shells, sea glass, dried coral, and some sea rocks.
size perspective
Next time I’ll try to find the other Sea Glass Beach because as I understand, if you walk down a bit from that sea glass beach, there is another beach with sand dollars.
Until next time, 立ち寄ってくれてありがとう (tachiyotte kurete arigatō = thank you for stopping by).
