If you've ever built a sand castle, complete with moat, only to have the wave of a rising tide make a sopping shambles of your work, then you have an idea of the expertise it would take to build a beach where none exists.

The men who build beaches rely on sophisticated technology, experience and creativity as they build a beach, sand grain upon grain. Here's a few short stories about the project crew and their interaction with the locals.

Freddy and a Florida Sunset

If Freddy, Chris and Lavaugn had sat on this same seawall in April, their feet would have dangled 6 feet above water. Now, after building the beach in front of 2500 Gulf Blvd., they can use the seawall like a park bench. The sand almost reaches the seawall cap.

These fellows are one of the night crews of Weeks Marine, contractors for the Sand Key Beach Restoration Project that began May 11, 1998 at Morgan Drive in Belleair Beach. These men are bona fide beach builders. For 27-year-old Chris, pictured in the middle, this is his seventh beach. There's a lot of expertise and technology behind pumping tons of sand from a dredge site 23 miles away.

Freddy, pictured at left, enjoys one of the on-the-job perks - the daily viewing of a Florida sunset. When Freddy heard his hard-hatted picture was going "up on the World Wide Web," his eyes got bigger than the beach he is helping create. "I might just find me a woman," the Louisianian quipped.


These Guys Move Mountains

As the sand is pumped onshore, it builds into huge (for Florida) mountains. The land crew's job is to bulldoze and grade the sand piles into a beach of engineered slope and dimension.

Nearly-native Floridian Jon Kaffai gets the once-in-a-lifetime chance to dune jump on a Pinellas County beach. This was the scene on Memorial Day Weekend that the 11-year-old found irresistible. Since then, the bulldozers have made molehills out of these mountains.


The Men With All The Answers

The beach building site has become a sort of tourist hot spot. People gather with excitement to watch the sand being pumped, gesturing to the offshore rig and pointing to the tubes. The crew stationed landside are on the receiving end of hundreds of questions per day. Everything from "What's going on here?" to "How many feet of sand is pumped per hour?".

Early on in the project, the crew had some fun with their role as on-site authority. They erected a plastic milk carton dubbed "The Tip Jar". It read "Questions, $1.00. Questions with Answers, $2. Questions with True Answers, $3." It has since been removed, but it served to add a light touch to the hard job of beach building.

The Mobile Office

To keep all the important blueprints, survey's, and other documents necessary for a project this size close at hand, the crew uses an "office on skids". As the beach grows, the office is towed to the area currently being worked on.

The office also provides a place for the crews to escape from the daytime heat and seasonal rains.


For Beach Builders ONLY!

The residents of Sarina Del Sol condo complex provided a cooler for the Beach Builders. Stocked with soda and water, the crews were thankful for this thoughtfulness.