Castles
in the Sand
 Tips
for making great sandcastles.
- Location, location, location. You
need to make sure your castle is not too close to shore to be
in danger of early demolition by rushing waves, yet close enough
that you don’t have to dig to far to hit some good, wet
sand.
- Wet sand is the key. Most
sand castle experts recommend digging down to the water table
for a good source of wet sand to use. You can also use a large
bucket to mix up your own batch of wet sand.
- Make pancakes.The key to a
strong structure is to build it by stacking flatter “blocks”
of sand on top of one another to build towers and then smoothing
the structure to carve features. These blocks aren’t really
blocks of sand but, rather, sand pancakes.
- Be gentle. When making sand
pancakes, jiggle them to get an even distribution of water within
each cake rather than smashing them down flat….be gentle
so that each holds water well.
- To build a tower, simply stack
the “pancakes” on top of each other, gradually getting
smaller as you go up to ensure balance.
- To build walls or other features
between your towers, form sand, again by gentle pressure
an jiggling into bricks and laying them between your towers.
You can carve features into the towers and your adjoining walls
if you wish.
- Tools like small shovels,
spatulas and even cookie cutters can help you make nice sand
features and shapes to decorate your castle.
—Betty |
For more on building great sand castles:
Check out the eHow
site or go to Sandcastle
Central, a site run by a group of Texans who call themselves
Sons of the
Beach.
One entrepreneur, Kirk
Rademaker, has found building sandcastles to be a great family
or business team building experience, and he provides individuals
and businesses with sand building “experiences.”
And, if you get serious, there is a US
Open Sandcastle Competition held each year in Imperial Beach,
California. Actually, this is one of several competitions held
all over the East, West and Gulf Coasts.
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