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| A Sandcastle on Navarre Beach. |
At an early age my parents taught me how to build a sandcastle using my hands to form the walls, then digging the moat and forming the outer walls. Fingers worked just fine to create windows and doors. No, we didn't have plastic forms to build sandcastles back then, just our hands and a lot of imagination. When the castle was complete, my dad showed me how to drip sand onto the structure to create the roof, spires and other decorative elements. Then it was all topped off with an assortment of seashells and colorful sea glass.
These days people use plastic forms and a variety of plastic shovels and rakes to build a sandcastle. It's still a fun thing to do, but not quite as unique and artistic as the ones I built as a child.
Yesterday my husband and I attended the Navarre Beach Sand Sculpture Festival. I expected to see an assortment of sandcastles, but such was not the case. Instead, there were the following sand creatures: a crocodile, a sea turtle, a gorilla head, horse heads, a snake, Humpty Dumpty, a giant eye and a giant face. Oh, there was also a race car, but only one sandcastle. Go figure. You can see the lone sandcastle in the photo above.
I'd love a beach festival of just sandcastles, but maybe sandcastles aren't popular these days? Oh well, I guess I'll have to go down to the beach and build my very own sandcastle, just to see if I still know how to do it the old fashioned way. On the other hand, when Hurricane Isaac battered the Gulf Coast several weeks back, I walked along the beach collecting plastic forms, rakes and shovels for building sandcastles. I wondered how all those brightly colored plastic forms ended up abandoned and half buried in the sand. Anyway, I now have enough plastic tools to build a modern day sandcastle.
I'm sorry to say that I don't have any photos of those sandcastles I built all those many years ago, when I was just a kid. Well, at least I have the memories. One of the things I remember from those long ago days, was watching the rising tide wash away the sandcastle at the end of the day. There was something special about creating a momentary work of art, a sandcastle here for a few hours and then gone.
For those who might be interested in the Navarre Beach Sand Sculpture Festival which continues through Sunday, here's the link with all the info.
Navarre Beach Sand Sculpture Festival
If you want to see more photos of the sand sculptures I mentioned above, and some enticing photos of Navarre Beach, check out the two blog posts I did yesterday.
For those of you who know I love to make lists of great books to read, well, here's a list of sandcastle fiction. (Listed in no particular order.)
Sandcastle Fiction:
Sandcastles by Luanne Rice*
Sandcastle and Other Stories by Justin Bog**
Sand Castles by Antoinette Stockinberg**
The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian
Sandcastles by April Hill
The Sand Castle by Rita Mae Brown
Sandcastles of Love by Sydell I. Voeller
Castles on the Sand by E. M. Tippetts
Sandcastles by H. H. Campbell
Sand Castles and Seashores by S. C. Harvey
All of the above books are available in eBook format.
*A book I've read and very much enjoyed by one of my favorite authors, Luanne Rice. I actually have a hardback copy of this keeper book.
**To-Be-Read Books on my Kindles (Two, my old Kindle Keyboard and new Kindle Fire).
Note: My book list above would have been longer, but there aren't that many sandcastle books. So maybe I need to write one? Just sayin'...
Please feel free to comment below and add any sandcastle books that I might have missed.
Before I forget, I came across a how-to book about building sandcastles. So in case anyone is interested, here it is:
Sandcastles Made Simple by Lucinda Wierenga
