Bermuda Beach

Bermuda has some magnificent large and small beaches. Some great ones are public, meaning that anyone can enjoy them. But some are private, not for general public, only to their guests - re-assuring to those who stay at properties with private beaches. Beach sand is not volcanic but from finely pulverized remains of calcium carbonate shells and skeletons of invertebrates such as corals, clams, forams and other shells. Beaches begin with tiny single-celled animals, Foraminifera, in particular, homotrema rubrum - or forams - dark red skeletal animals that grow profusely on the underside of Bermuda's coral reefs. When the red forms die, the skeletons plummet to the ocean floor.

Wave action erodes the forams. They become mixed with other debris on the seabed such as the white shells of clams, snails and sea urchins. It is at that time that Bermuda's white sand takes on its characteristic pink hue. While coral reefs are common elsewhere, Bermuda is one of the northernmost areas in the Western Hemisphere. (But by no means the northernmost place in the world for coral reefs, as is commonly but mistakenly claimed). There are cold-water and other coral reefs on the coastlines of Spain and Portugal throughout the northeast Atlantic, stretching north in the Irish sea, then due north, northwest and northeast all the way up to Norway).

Devonshire Bay Cold-water corals form a rich habitat for deep-water species hunted by fishing trawlers mostly from Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, England, Wales, France and Norway. Coral reefs alone cover an area twice the length of Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Only in all the islands of Bermuda, the islands of the Bahamas including Harbour Island and at least five places in Scotland is the sand pink, but not because of the warm water corals. It is untrue to say that Bermuda's beaches have coarser sand. In fact, the sand in Bermuda is exceptionally fine. Bermuda's coral reefs, from where the forams come, are probably in better condition than many Bahamas reefs. Bermuda beaches are not as pink as the deep pink beaches of Scotland but they all have turquoise waters.

Source : Bermuda's Beach