By Mike Holliday
There’s something inherently special about walking on the beach barefoot. Ninety percent of my reasoning for living along the coast is related to being able to feel sand between my toes. The other 10 percent toggles between an affinity for sea breezes and an aversion to insects and alligators.
In some areas, like Daytona Beach and Cocoa Beach, and many of the beaches along the west coast of Florida, the sand is composed primarily of salt crystals, along with a mixture of minerals. In southeastern Florida, the sand mixes with other elements like coquina, worm rock and sand dollars. The finest particles of sand along the beaches in Palm Beach County are actually Appalachian quartz crystals carried from river to sea in coastal Georgia, then washed south with the alongshore currents.
The larger particles in the sand here are shell fragments, rolled constantly by the surf and mixed with the quartz until small and light enough to push onto shore. The shells give our local beaches their burnt orange hue, much like the outgoing tide at Boynton Inlet jades the crystalline Atlantic. For all its color and coarseness, the compound is appealing enough to make it one of the most attractive features in coastal America.
It’s hard to live along the coast without surrounding yourself with sand. It’s a component of the soil, as well as the floor mats in my Jeep, instep in my shoes, floor in the laundry room and drain trap in every sink, bathtub and shower in the house. It’s also a frequent guest in my bed, so I guess you can say we’ve been intimate. Sand particles adhere to my body like a bad smell sticks to a garbage can, and both require concerted effort to dislodge, although my kids have the unique ability to coax sand into jumping off them and onto inanimate objects like tables, couches and chairs. I’m quite sure it’s not a targeted effort on the sand’s part to discriminate, and the proof is on the insides of their bathing suits, each of which hold enough sand to make a Hacky Sack.
My children find sand a source of amusement and are drawn to it much like I am drawn to microbreweries. With a shovel and small bucket they can build castles that stretch their imaginations. The holes they dig serve as forts, which, once they tire of them, are easily transformed into burial plots.
My oldest daughter, who is 10, is always first in line to get buried up to her neck, a trait I personally attribute to a plot to build a sandbox in my Jeep. Once she’s uncovered, it takes all my superior adult skills of persuasion to get her to wash off before we leave. Even then, I suspect she’s smuggling sand in her suit for a quick release on the floorboards.
For all the hassle sand can produce, its pleasantries make a warm, sunny day at the beach as much a lifestyle as a love. For without our sand, we’d just be hanging out on the jetty.
Mike Holliday is the editor of Florida Fishing Weekly. He wrote this essay for The Coastal Star.
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