glass beach sand
Terri Webster Schrandt

Sunday Stills Monthly Color Challenge: April’s Sparkling Diamonds and Quartz

Freshly back home from our 40-day road trip, this is my second post in which I’ll share about our visits and adventures. You can read more about our California Poppy experience here.

Truth be told, I had no idea what I’d have to share in photos for this color challenge. Raise your hand if you don’t think quartz crystals or diamonds are colors. You wouldn’t be wrong. But there are only so many colors to use for 12 months of color challenges, so I went with April’s birthstone, diamond. And added quartz for fun, although quartz also comes in many colors. The image below shows an example of the colors I’m looking for, filed under “April” on the far right.

gemstones
2026 Color Challenge Ideas

“Quartz is the most powerful healing and energy amplifier on the planet.” – Judy Hall

On a previous trip to Arizona, I snapped this photo of a gem shop sporting labeled bowls of gems. Note the bowl of quartz crystals on the far right. So, those are the “colors” we aim to discover this week.

gem stones

Found at Glass Beach, the “Gem” of the Northern California Coast

“Rocks and minerals make up the very fabric of our planet, reminding us of the power and beauty of nature.” – John Muir

Many of the next images were taken on Day 35 of our trip in the coastal town of Fort Bragg, Northern California. We stayed overnight at the Weller House, a charming old mansion built in 1886. After a 4-hour drive from San Francisco along Hwy 1, a VERY winding road, we barely had the energy to check out Glass Beach.

A short drive from the hotel, we entered the beach parking lot and were greeted with a cloudy sunset of sorts. Diamonds glittered across the waves.

glass beach sun

“Simplicity is a jewel rarely found.” – Ovid

We hiked down to the beach “sand,” although non-descript in this image, you can almost see bits of color…

beach at Glass Beach
Glass Beach, upon first glance

“Every gem is a story of evolution; every crystal embodies a piece of knowledge and time.”
– Walt Whitman

A treasure trove of gems (quartz and “diamonds”) was found on Glass Beach, part of MacKerricher State Park, a protected area where collecting is strictly prohibited.

… upon closer inspection… 120 years worth of erosion… created this!

glass beach sand

How Did Glass Beach Form?

According to this SOURCE:

“Between 1906 and 1967, residents of Fort Bragg used the coastal bluffs as dumping grounds, tossing everything from bottles, cans, and household goods to larger items like appliances, batteries, and even old cars over the cliffs—a common practice in many seaside communities at the time.“

glass beach

Over the decades, the ocean slowly took over, breaking down the debris. Glass shattered, tumbled in the surf, and was gradually worn into smooth, colorful pebbles. What’s left today is a kaleidoscope of polished sea glass in shades of green, amber, white, and red.

“Like all magnificent things, it’s very simple.” ― Natalie Babbitt

On our recent trip, we discovered more crystalline beauty north in Bandon Beach, Oregon. More about that trip next time, but we discovered this while shopping….

An Ocean Wave Sand Art kinetic sculpture made by Klaus “Sandman” Bosch.

Circular Kinetic Sculpture
Kinetic Sculpture

We bought it and took it home. Simply by adjusting the sculpture, the sand and water mix to form incredible shapes. Here is a close-up of the shimmering, fine crystalline sand.

fine sand in glass sculpture
Fine sand in kinetic sculpture

Living one state away from Oregon, we frequently see the beautiful diamond shape of Mt Hood looming in the distance near Portland. This image was enhanced by the Google filter.

View of Mt Hood

A Marine Gem That Will “Blow” Your Mind

I saved the best for last, an image of a colonial organism called “By-the-Wind Sailors.”

Say what now, you ask?

These clear, jellyfish-like marine organisms, Velella velella, commonly known as by-the-wind sailors, are often encountered floating on the ocean’s surface. During the spring and summer months in the Pacific Northwest, windy conditions cause them to wash ashore, leaving them stranded in huge piles on the beach.

V Velella marine organisms
By-the-Wind Sailors washed up on the beach

I created this AI-generated image with CoPilot so we could all see what they might look like before they’re washed up on the beaches.

AI By the Wind Sailors
AI-Generated By-the-Wind Sailors, aka Velella

I had never heard of these little windsurfers, each only 1-2 inches long. Their bright blue bodies and crystalline “sails” seemed to fit this color challenge.

“Velella velella are hydrozoans within the phylum Cnidaria, not true jellyfish. They are colonial organisms, meaning each “individual” is a collection of specialized polyps living together. These polyps are connected by a shared canal system and have distinct roles, including feeding, reproduction, and defense.” SOURCE

While they look similar to jellyfish, by-the-wind sailors are more closely related to the Portuguese Man O’ War.

by the wind sailors
By the Wind Sailors Beached (pubic domain photo)

“The sea is a treasure chest of wonders, each creature a gem waiting to be discovered.” – Unknown

This week, I’m linking to Dawn’s Spring Festival, Johnbo’s Cellpic Sunday, Pepper’s One Step, and Kym’s WQ: Simplicity.

All images in this post were taken with Samsung Galaxy Cell Phones

graphic

Sunday Stills Photo Challenge Reminders

The Sunday Stills weekly-themed photo challenge is easy to join. You have all week to share and link your post. Please use your own original images, whether new or from your archives.

  • Remember to title your blog post a little differently from mine.
  • Entries for this theme can be posted all week.
  • Tag your post “Sunday Stills.”
  • Don’t forget to create a pingback to this post so that other participants can read your post.
  • I also recommend adding your post’s URL to the comments.

If you are participating in the photo challenge, I look forward to seeing how you interpret this month’s color challenge theme! Creativity is encouraged, so please share your own photographs (old or new), poems, original short stories, and music inspired by the theme.

Many thanks to both Susanne and Cathy, who co-hosted Sunday Stills while we took our 40-day road trip.

If you need more inspiration for this color challenge, check out Susanne’s 2024 post and her visit to the Smithsonian. She went with literal quartz crystals, but only your imagination can decide what works for this color challenge.

I can’t wait to see how you interpret the various shades of crystal, diamonds, and quartz for the April monthly color challenge. Please join me next week as we explore Earth Day (April 22).

graphic

© 2026 Copyright — Terri Webster Schrandt and secondwindleisure.com — All Rights Reserved

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78 comments

  2. You are so lucky to have discovered the glass beach, Terri. The beach near us also has a lot of smooth glass on it. I see people collecting it almost every day. One lady told me she used it to make jewellery.

    I’m more interested in the bits of pottery I find on the beach. There used to be a big porcelain factory in Swansea called Cambrian Pottery. It dates back to the early 19th century, and many broken porcelain or poor-quality wares were tossed into the river that flows into Swansea Bay. They are not worth anything, but having that bit of history in your hands feels great.

    As for the By-the-Wind Sailors Velella velellas, they are a first for me. I’ve never heard of them, so thank you for the introduction. We do get jellyfish washing up on the beach during the summer months, but I would much rather it be these fabulous little creatures you introduced us to.

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  4. Beautiful post Terri. I love crystals and have many as well. That Glass beach was unreal! And I’d never heard of clear jellyfish, nor had I ever seen one so thanks for the show. Hugs xx

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  7. Gorgeous photos, Terri. I love the story behind Glass Beach, and I can only imagine the stories connected to the pieces of glass. I love your fascinating kinetic sculpture.💕

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  8. Dear Terri
    On our beach one can find carneols and jet. But not in such masses and not so colourful stones and glass. That’s great what you saw on Glass Beach.
    Thanks
    The Fab Four of Cley
    🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

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  13. That beach glass fascinates me Terri, not only how it looks now, but thinking of the reason it is there! Cars over the cliff – wow! Look what all that garbage created though! We had a seiche in Lake Erie last December. The winds (60-80 mph) were so strong they pushed a big portion of water to one side and people were standing on the lakebed and looking for treasures. The 7.5 foot water drained from one area and ended up in another area. I didn’t go to see it, but there were videos posted all over social media. People found lots of treasures, including a snowmobile, jewelry, pieces of old cars and the Trenton Chief of Police who was retiring a few days later posted on social media holding up his high school class ring lost 40 years earlier. It was not dilapidated in any way – he might have polished it up himself, but otherwise, the stone and lettering were fine. The By-the-Wind Sailors pics and story were interesting – it would be for you as well, since you like wind surfing!

    My post today is about ice and its sparkly tendencies. I watched a Great Blue Heron walking along an icy ledge and also showed a picture of the same heron from a few years back walking on glare ice on the same Creek. Ice sparkles like glass or even diamonds as you know.

    By the way, I know what days you post and your posts appear in my Notifications and via e-mail, but it did not appear in Reader today. The same thing happened with another blogger last Friday. He posts every Friday, so I hunted him down.

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    • Thank you, Linda! We had some wonderful adventures and learned new facts about interesting subjects. The By-the-Wind sailors were a total surprise, and I was sorry I didn’t take more pics. You are right about their wind connection!
      That’s amazing about the Lake Erie treasure hunt!

      I don’t use the Reader, so I dont check. My posts publish at 7:30 am. I follow and subscribe to my blog as a back up and I see my posts in the Reader. Susanne admits she has an unsupported theme (one I used years ago) and thinks she should change themes. WP is glitchy as we all know. Soon I’ll be taking the advice of other bloggers who have changed to block themes. I will take a week break when that happens. I’m noticing i have to log in to certain posts, or have trouble leaving a “like” and I suspect unsupported themes. Mine still is, but I’d like to modernize. Both of these issues happen on Jetpack app and on my computer. So…

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      • Who says we have to stop learning when we’re done with school or retired … you learned something new and so did we. The Lake Erie seiche was something else, all from the strong winds at 60-80 mph. We had 54 mph winds last night, middle of the night out of nowhere. They woke me up and raged for about two hours and we have lots of old trees around. I’ll be glad when this week of severe weather is over. We are having a storm this evening … it got to 83 today. Too hot, too soon.

        WP contacted me a few weeks ago to tell me I had to change my background/color combo as they were doing new tech features on June 15th and it would not be supported. I double-checked it was not my theme as it is older (Twenty-Ten it is called) and WP said ‘you’re good, just the background” so that might not be Susanne’s problem. I saw that Hugh Roberts took the plunge for the block theme and I also would take time away in case I ran into problems with 13 years’ worth of posts gone awry.

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      • A lot of WP infrastructure is upgrading, which is good! I’m going to switch to the block theme the first weekend in May and take a short blog break that week. I looked today and see the theme I want. I’m on the WP premium plan so I can choose more. Another blogger and of course, Hugh, reported it’s easy and worth the time. I get that its hard to change, but changing to block themes may help with the many glitches. Susanne said her theme in currently unsupported. I used that same theme 5 years ago.

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      • Yes, less glitches with more upgrading (unless it is all AI upgrades which is possible). I am on the WP premium plan too, but I didn’t look if I’m supported for my Twenty Ten theme. I never use a phone for blogging, so for now I’ll keep it simple.

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  15. Those by-the-wind sailors are amazing. I’ve never seen anything like them. I’m happy to know that the glass beach at Fort Bragg is protected. I know some people will think they don’t need to pay attention to the rules, but hopefully, most will comply so everyone can continue to enjoy it.

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    • I was as stunned as you are, Janis, to see those organisms littering the beach, what they were and how they got there. Their name sounds so romantic! Yes, that Glass Bach sand is full of the colorful glass, but I needed a tight close-up with my phone to really see them. Sadly, I’m sure all the big ones are long gone…

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  16. Welcome back, Terri. I’m a crystal addict, I love collecting the ones that appeal. Apologies, I couldn’t join in this week due to computer issues and visitors. Hopefully I’ll be up and running by the end of the week.

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  23. Oh, you got some gorgeous pictures from Glass Beach! I also encountered v. velella recently on the beach in Lincoln City. Your photos of them are especially wonderful! Thanks for recommending my post from 2024. Those are still the best pictures I have of quartz!

    Btw, I’m not seeing your posts in the Reader anymore. I also get an email so I won’t miss them. But it’s looking like the Reader doesn’t include all the blogs I follow anymore.

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  28. Thank you, Terri, for this wonderful travelog…what a gem (sorry, pardon the pun!)! I love the ocean photos. Thank you for the excellent information on By-the-Wind Sailors Velella velellas. I had not heard of these sea critters before. I love the photo of Glass Beach and the small irregular shapes of stone and glass…amazing.

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