"Dave" and the Legend of Puerto Rico's Fabled Sea Glass Beach

Let me begin by saying welcome to the hundreds of new readers we picked up over the last few days by me (Buzz) making disparaging comments about mofongo. More on that later, but first... the story of "Dave" and the Legend of Puerto Rico's Fabled Sea Glass Beach.

The story really starts over a hundred years ago when to get rid of garbage forever in a place where it would never ever be seen again, the practice of hauling it out to sea and dumping it was commonly employed. Puerto Rico was no different. Fast forward centuries and decades later, and all of the bottles from that garbage and ship wrecks were busted up on the rocks and corals as the tides swirled them around on the ocean floor. 

What resulted is sea glass, worn and polished, covered in a frosty glaze, and coveted by tourists and jewelry makers much like seashells are in areas where they are prevalent. Presumably since shells are so scarce in this part of the island, sea glass has instead become the favorite keepsake of tourists. 

We first encountered the phenomenon when we came to this part of the island and stayed on the beach a while back. The section of beach was littered with sea glass. We would wake up in the morning to discover a new mound of rocks had been deposited behind our rental and find dozens of pieces in it without ever walking more than a few feet off the deck. 

When we met a kind woman from Long Island, she informed us that we could take the best of our most prized pieces to a lady who sets up a tent in front of the lighthouse in Rincon, and she could make them into jewelry for us. The girls loved the idea, so we off we went to Rincon. 

There, we found a very sweet lady sitting in the parking lot beneath a tent surrounded by sea glass jewelry for sale. We inquired, and sure enough, for about the price of a mofongo dinner (yuck!) she would drill a tiny little hole and craft them into jewelry to take home to the little girls in our life. While she inspected each piece and told us which ones were the really good pieces, she would say things like, "oh, this is a very rare piece" and "this one would fetch $900 in New York." 

By the time were done, we realized that we were sitting on a virtual undiscovered gold mine. On the way home, I was mulling over what sort of sluice box I could construct to separate sea glass from rocks and industrialize our new found wealth into billions of dollars. 

Also on that drive home I noticed something else. While Puerto Rico has a very depressed economy, the locals are incredibly resourceful. While there may not be very many jobs in our area, people make their living doing every possible thing imaginable. Hard jobs. From the guys who stand in the heat selling ice cold waters at the stoplights, to the people who climb trees to harvest coconuts, only to spend the rest of their time performing the grueling job of harvesting the oil from them, to the young people who climb into small wooden boats to set out upon one of the most treacherous seas in the world to catch a few fish, these people work hard to earn a living. And, I deduced, that if there was real high value in sea glass, there would be gangs armed men with automatic rifles and machetes out protecting every stretch of the best beaches.

Not seeing any buy/sell/trade sea glass pawn shops around, and not being privy to where, exactly, in New York, we could go to collect our millions for our sea glass haul from that week, my mind drifted quickly to other things and I forgot all about it. 

   

While we were in the process of moving down here, Lorri decided she wanted to take a break from house hunting and stressing and go back to the beach we stayed on to look for some sea glass. She had no plans of doing anything with it, but thought it would be relaxing.

When we went, we met another couple who had moved down from the States not long before. For the purpose of respecting anonymity I will call the guy "Dave." Well, Dave and his wife were also there looking for sea glass. While they were both very kind and welcoming to the island, Dave informed me that they lived very near that particular beach, looked for sea glass on it every day, and that there were better beaches for sea glass, with much larger pieces, back in Rincon. 

I got the drift. I am, after all, an old union bum, accustomed to being run off from places, and have been on the receiving end of my share of threats from mobsters. "Look, I'm not telling you what to do. Only that there are better places to try to unionize than this particular laundry. Mr. Jimmy owns this one, see. Maybe try up the road. There is a really good laundry needs organized up there." 

I can only assume that after that day, Dave had secretly installed a GPS tracking system on our car that sent off an alarm at his house to let him know when we had breached the city limit. Because when we couldn't sleep and went up at 6am, Dave showed up. When we went later with our friends from Iowa so they could find some sea glass, Dave showed up. It is as if Dave instinctively knew anytime we went there. 

Fast forward to this morning. Having had to go to the post office to pickup our weekly trunk load of Amazon crap on the north side of town, I thought I would drive to the sea glass beach to look at the waves coming in. Side note: you have to pick up everything from the USPS at the post office here, because, bizarrely, they never quite got around to naming the streets and every address will leave you at a mailbox, and every address typed into google will lead to some random nearby point on the nearest main road. 

Walking down to the beach from my car I noticed the waves had washed in a large pile of rocks. I threw off my flip flops and walked around in them. 

There was gold in them there hills! Sea glass gold! And while I do not value the stuff enough to walk long stretches of beach for it like Lorri does, I thought I would pick up a few pieces since they were right there. I also felt the added bonus of knowing that I was "stealing" them from "Dave's" beach, which made the entire twenty minute process all the more enjoyable. 

I might have stayed there, kicking rocks around and letting the waves reveal treasure, but a large wave came up while I was bent over and splashed up between my legs, making it appear that I had pissed myself and soaking my cigarettes. No matter. I had a pocket full of Dave's sea glass. Mission accomplished. 

Walking up the ramp my heart raced when the little car pulled up. Dave and his wife emerged, waving and smiling as I approached. 

"What are you doing up here?" Dave asked with a smile.

"Nothing," I replied. 

Panicked and hoping the bulge of sea glass in my pocket wouldn't be spotted, I lied. "I just came up to look at the surf and dip my feet in the water," I said nervously, pulling at my collar as beads of sweat formed on my forehead. They were onto me. The GPS tracking device had busted me again. 

Dave's wife smiled as she eyed me suspiciously. She could practically smell the sea glass on me. Dave knew I was lying and made me stand there making small talk as punishment. 

We exchanged more shallow pleasantries, and I walked slowly away, careful to move slowly and methodically so the telltale tinkling of sea glass in my pocket wouldn't give me away. Whew. That was a close one. 

Having barely escaped the wrath of Dave, I stopped up the road at one of my favorite little seaside lunch spots, and in light of all of the comments on my mofongo article, I decided to give it one more chance.

Here is a chicken and rice with a side of garlic butter mofongo. Mmmm.

And here it is after I was finished eating. Mmmm. Mofongo. It is delicious if you only lick the garlic and butter off the top. Delicious. The one missing bite required two cans of Coke and a glass of water to get it down. Legend has it the dish was invented during a mini-ice age when the local children couldn't find anything else to use for a hockey puck. 

And finally, here it is. The twenty minute mother lode, pilfered from Dave's fabled sea glass beach, and safely smuggled across county lines! Score! In your face, Dave! Whoop! Whoop!

According to local legend, a haul like this ought to be worth about $50k somewhere in New York. But today it can all be yours. If you're interested in winning this entire lot, simply email me at buzzdmalone@gmail.com and I will enter you in a drawing on December 1, 2019. You could be rolling in the stuff before Christmas!  Make sure to state in the subject line "Dave's Treasure" to be entered and include your mailing address (I promise it won't be used or saved for anything else). 

Also, the winner has to promise to send a picture of you when you receive the prize to be used in this blog later on so everyone can see where it ended up. Thanks for reading everyone!