pretty in pink

Except for my years in Canada, I grew up with the sand at my feet, but never with sand so pretty as Bermuda's. And I say pretty because it's pink. It's not the coral that's the contributor, but a single celled animal known as foram (or the red foraminifier to be exact), pink in colour & growing on the underside of rocks. Once the foram dies, its pink skeleton is eroded & washed away to join the ranks of other particles like snails, shells & white sand. It is the foram that gives Bermuda's sand its pink hue & sand of this caliber is quite rare. Scotland is reported to be the only other place in the world with sand similar to Bermuda's.

While not all of Bermuda's beaches sport this pink hue, most do, especially at Warwick Bay (big chunks of pink there) but the sand all over the island is soft on your feet. And the government does a pretty good job of keeping this sand clean. During the summer months the sand is cleaned regularly of seaweed & litter. We found this lone little fella at John Smith's Bay. He couldn't decide which direction to head into but he was camouflaged quite well & content sitting pretty in pink. Except for those yellow legs that give him away!