Coastal Crossword Puzzle

Put Your Beachcombing Knowledge to the Test

Click here for a printable PDF version of the crossword puzzle.

Click here for a printable PDF version of the crossword clues.

Click on the magnifying glass 🔍 to get a hint for each clue. See how many you can get without using the hints!

ACROSS

3. Glass device used in the mid-19th century on telegraph wires 🔍
5. Nickname for sea glass that is so dark it appears black 🔍
6. Glass orb developed in Norway in the 1840s for the fishing industry 🔍
7. Glass byproduct of the iron smelting process 🔍
8. A popular blue-and-white transferware pattern on pottery 🔍
11. A spiral or turn in a shell 🔍
13. Type of bottle sealed with a marble 🔍
17. Classic ceramics with a matte “biscuit” finish and relief decorations in color and white 🔍
19. Bottle, jar, or other container used to store liquids 🔍
20. Pencil-shaped fossils from an extinct squid-like cephalopod 🔍
21. The largest piece of beach glass ever was found in this lake 🔍
24. Nickname for colorful glass often found in Seaham, England 🔍
26. Opaque glass tile from the 1930s with ridges on one side 🔍
28. Glass that has been naturally tumbled in salt water 🔍
31. California town that was home to an art glass studio 🔍
32. Minnesota’s state gemstone, characterized by colorful bands 🔍
33. Larger-sized marble, also called the “Boss,” used to play Ringer 🔍
35. Colorful glassware mass-produced in the early 20th century 🔍
37. “Lucky stones” are actually the ear bones of this type of fish 🔍
40. Known as floating gold, this comes from a whale’s bile duct 🔍
41. Rocks with fluorescent sodalite found near the Great Lakes 🔍
43. Beach rock with round holes in it 🔍
44. Colored by combining a thin layer of colored glass over clear glass 🔍
45. Opening or open space in a shell 🔍
46. Cape May ____: Nickname for quartz stones found in New Jersey 🔍
50. A shell that spirals to the left 🔍
52. ____ purse: Nickname for an egg casing from a shark, ray, or skate 🔍
53. Victorian button style made of jet or black glass 🔍
55. Rock-like structure created when lightning strikes sand 🔍
58. A T-shaped circular piece used to seal bottles, decanters, and vials 🔍
59. Grey rock encircled by a single, unbroken white line 🔍
61. Opaque and translucent white glass also known as opal glass 🔍
62. Debris from a ship’s cargo lost in the water by accident 🔍
64. Sea glass that has been exposed to the high temperature of a fire 🔍
65. The central column or axis of a spiral univalve shell 🔍
66. Soft fleshy body of a mollusk 🔍
67. Ceramics painted or decorated with water-thinned clay 🔍

DOWN
1. Glass that has been naturally tumbled in a lake or river 🔍
2. Mollusk with a one-part shell that usually spirals 🔍
4. ____ jug: A vessel with a bearded face made along the Rhine River in the 16th–18th centuries 🔍
8. Mollusk with a shell made up of two parts joined by a hinge 🔍
10. Bottle style with rounded bottom, stored on its side 🔍
12. ____ line: A strip of debris left on a beach by the receding waves 🔍
14. Round, flat, glass game pieces from Japan 🔍
15. Fossil known as a sea lily that was actually a marine animal 🔍
16. Controversial practice of throwing broken glass along the shoreline 🔍
18. Nickname for salt-glazed, mottled stoneware marbles 🔍
22. ____ top: Thick bottle-lip style developed in the 1850s 🔍
23. A wave in 1997 washed 62 cargo containers of these toys overboard 🔍
24. Whimsical name for sea glass based on a folktale 🔍
27. Extinct predator whose fossilized teeth are found on the beach 🔍
29. Sand collector 🔍
30. Nickname for a small Victorian-era porcelain doll 🔍
34. Hard, red gemstones found by mudlarks along the Thames 🔍
36. This type of crab makes its home in empty mollusk shells 🔍
38. This crab has been around for 450 million years 🔍
39. Michigan’s state stone, technically a fossilized colony coral 🔍
42. Nickname for glass with wire inside 🔍
47. Fossilized cephalopods with ribbed, spiral shells 🔍
48. This type of “sand” found in Okinawa, Japan, is the remnants of tiny organisms 🔍
49. Marine mammal that inspired the myth of the mermaid 🔍
50. Hard-coated seed from a pod that drifts on sea currents 🔍
54. The concave bottom of many wine bottles 🔍
56. Translucent glass that casts an orange shadow in bright light 🔍
57. Bottles containing this were often embossed with grooves, bumps, ridges, or skulls 🔍
60. Ceramics decorated with stamps, often manufactured in Scotland 🔍
63. Ingredient in canary or Vaseline glass that glows under black light 🔍

Crossword Answers

Click here for a printable PDF version of the crossword puzzle answers.

This article appeared in Beachcombing Magazine Volume 53, the March/April 2026 issue