The contest is now under the aegis of the Department of Tourism of the Bermuda Government, said William Griffith, its Director: “This event has grown in participation and popularity and has proven to be a highly anticipated weekend of fun for our visitors and locals.”An abiding memory for many of Bermuda’s children must be the days at the beach, part of which might have been spent building sandcastles, coloured pink by a natural pigmentation in our lime sand. Like making a lime mortar with such sand, a little water is needed to “glue” the particles together, with “scuptures” made by the repetitious dumping of material from an upturned bucket, forming the rampart of a castle for a day. Often, however, the coming tide would begin the erosion of the military edifice of one’s imagination and down the lot would come, much like the tumble-down fate of Charles Fort on the southern perimeter of Castle Harbour, which disappeared without trace in the late 1950s, an early victim perhaps of global warming.This land of ours is but a house of sand, surviving at the benign acquiescence of Nature and its geological handmaiden, or rather the underlying fundament of all things natural below the sky and sea. Mount Bermuda is but one of the thousands of sea monsters created by a hole in the mantle of the Earth, which provided for the escape of molten rock, which eventually bubbled up to the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, there to rest for some millennia, awaiting the arrival of salt water life that eventually formed reefs.Sea shells and dead reef creatures were transformed into sand and the splendid Bermuda beaches came into being, with sand dunes to the rear slowly consolidating, through the action of rainwater, into the solid rocks of the place. Unless, through a thorough inundation of the island cause by global warming and the melting of polar ice, Bermuda is removed from the geological record, the processes that formed solid land hereabouts will continue to the cows come home, or rather far beyond the time when none are here grazing.For 17 years now, the sandcastles of old have been elevated to new architectural and artistic levels through a competition started those many years ago by the Institute of Bermuda Architects, “spearheaded by Mrs Nicky Gurret” and taking place annually on the sands of “Great Turtle Bay”, or the more recent and bland Horseshoe Beach, a yawing tribute to our lack of imagination and dearth of interest in the more poetic appellations of history. Where once a million eggs were laid, now recline oiled denizens of another order, whose flippers are multicoloured in rubber and plastic. Among those nesting holiday-makers there appeared last Saturday a line of mountains of sand, awaiting the onslaught of “sand-sculptors”, formerly makers of sandcastles: let the competition begin, but supply your own water from the sea!For this event of transient heritage, some two dozen mounds of sand were turned into sculptures of various dimensions and subject matter, the latter obviously reflecting an interest of the “artists”, who ranged in age from young to getting on a bit. Animals featured securely as is often the case in such competitions, with Flipper the Dolphin reclining flat-bellied on the sand. A mouse, an owl, a hippopotamus, a good-sized land crab (one of the last in these islands) vied with a giant cat’s face, a seal, a “longtail” and two octopii.For a comment on sea life versus human existence, one work of art had a shark enjoying lunch on the leg of a bystander and was inexplicably labeled “Osbourne”, rather than the legendary “Jaws”. But no matter, it added a touch of the macabre to an otherwise worldly show. More human and other animal interaction was to be found in the ziggurat of Swiss cheese suffering a “home invasion” by a mouse or rat, recognizable only through his, or her, protruding buttocks and lengthy tail, the all telling a tale of old.What appeared to be an angel was counterpointed by an earthly, possible pregnant, reclining Venus, while nearby was a large foot, reminiscent of that of a Pharaoh missing the sculpture of rest of his body. Concentrating on the more cerebral area, a giant eye stared at visitors and locals, with the caption “Eye Sea You”.Architecture was not ignored and a Bermuda home on a cliff top competed with a nice rendition by Mont Saint-Michel (complete with the dagger rocks of low tide) and a pyramid. Tourism appeared in slogans, with “Feel the Beat” a medley of Bermuda shorts and headphones, while the new advertising slogan, “So Much More”, evoked a comfortable couch under canvas and the more earthly “So Much More…Roaches”. For elegance of sculpting, “Angry Birds” with rooster, hen, “peeps” and eggs, took the sand-cake, at least to my feral eyes, and was latterly made the Overall Winner.A good time seemed to be had by all, especially the spectators whose only work was to adjust their shades or press the picture button on their phone or camera. The day drew into the lovely light of dusk, as can only obtain on a pink Bermuda beach, and the “castles” were left to fend for themselves in the ensuing dark, perhaps to await the erasing hand of Hurricane Leslie, as she vents her wrath on the shores of our house of sand.Edward Cecil Harris, MBE, JP, PHD, FSA is Executive Director of the National Museum at Dockyard. Comments may be made to director@bmm.bm or 704-5480.