How'd You Make That?!!

As mentioned in the previous post, many sandcastles were constructed during our week in Destin.  The first couple days, I was all by my lonesome, with one bucket, one mini shovel, and one solo cup.  I warmed up the old standbys; forms, stairs, drizzle castles, and the like.

And on Day Four, the boys arrived, and brought with them our backlog of buckets, carving tools, and large shovels.  The scale increased immensely, starting with a free-form castle featuring a wrap-around snake, a three-way tunnel, forms on a curved surface, and some very precise organic line cuts.

The next day we got a bit more daring, trying the Washington monument technique, or cutting stacked circular forms into straight-sided towers.  We only had one casualty in the late afternoon due to a sneaky injection hole left un-filled.  More stairs, half-cup forms, and flags were also used.

And the final day, we went all out, accomplishing a new sandcastle feat, and raising the standards forevermore.  It started off as a massive pile of sand.

After much deliberation on the overall scope, carving and form work began, with the detail crew following immediately.  I think we attracted the biggest crowd of spectators out of all our years of sandcastles, starting with an awestruck kid asking "How'd you make that?!" when it was still just the large pile, and ending with passersby of all ages stopping for a photo, almost always followed with "How long have you all been working on that?"

(photos by e.hunt, and r.hunt)