Renown sea glass expert and author Richard LaMotte, returned to the Calvert Marine Museum on Sunday, January 20 for his third appearance in the museum’s lecture series.

Sea glass vendors on hand in the lobby for this event were ”Designing Woman Jewelry” by Judy Ann Larsen of Solomons, Md,” “Genuine Sea Glass from the Chesapeake Bay Jewelry” by Wanda Florence of Dameron, and “Frosted Trash” by Julie O’Brien of St. Mary’s County.  Maureen Baughman of the museum’s staff, expertly kept LaMotte on schedule throughout the afternoon.

The personable and gracious LaMotte enthusiastically conducted  pre- and post-lecture sea glass identification sessions with book signings (taking the time to write personal messages). He addressed a filled-to-capacity audience in the museum’s auditorium.

Richard LaMotte resides on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. He has worked for a water analysis company since 1984. His wife makes jewelry from sea glass found by the Chesapeake Bay. He is the author of Pure Sea Glass, published by Sea Glass Publishing in Chestertown, Md. with beautiful photography by Celia Pearson. His interest in sea glass began in 2002; while he was doing research for a lecture, he began to seek answers to question asked by some of his wife’s customers. He also publishes a deck of sea glass cards, boxed note cards, a journal, a guest book and a calendar. (For more information you may contact www.pureseaglass.com or www.seaglasspublishing.com).

He began his talk by describing some of the mysteries of sea glass hunting: where can you find sea glass? how does it form? and when should you go out to look for sea glass? Locating sea glass can be difficult due to the history of the glass itself – some types of glass are no longer made. 

He named Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia as great places to hunt for sea glass. And there are additional prime sites as you proceed down along the coast through Boston Harbor, the south side of Cape Cod,  Providence, R.I.,(specifically Naragansset Bay), Long Island Sound,  all along the New Jersey shoreline – all the way down to the Chesapeake Bay. Sea glass can be plentiful in these locations because of some of the trash dumps there, and because of population density. All of these areas have good wave action; wherever a large river mouth opens into a Bay is an excellent spot to hunt sea glass. As you come even further down the coast to North and South Carolina you will find that major cities are mostly inland, thus sea glass finds are not as plentiful.

When is a good time to look for sea glass?…any time after a storm. The best times to look are October through March or during a full moon (when the high and low tides and higher and lower than normal). At low tide, LaMotte advises first walking the low tide line (where sea glass