Sandcastle Lessons

Everyone loves to build sandcastles at the beach. It brings out the kid in all of us.  So when we went to the beach last summer, we decided to take Sandcastle Lessons from the famous Port Aransas Sandcastle Guy. In case you haven't heard, Port Aransas has some of the world's best sand for building castles and sculptures.

Mark Landrum was an accountant until he realized how much fun it was building sandcastles and teaching others how to do the same.  So now he's a full-time Sandcastle Guy and loving life.

We emailed Mark a few days before our beach trip to see if he could give our group a lesson. Thankfully he had an opening at 6:00pm on a Sunday evening  (he does 4-5 lessons a day).

He provided all the equipment needed for the lesson.  His "high tech tools" included shovels, 5-gallon buckets for water, additional 5-gallon buckets with the bottoms cut out for molding the sand, and some plastic cutlery for adding details to your castle.

The first order of business was to take the Sandcastle Builders Pledge to "have fun, be helpful and use mistakes as an opportunity for creativity". In other words, when something crumbles -- and it will -- don't cry over it. Just make it into something new.

Then we got down to the business of making our sandcastles.  We really learned a lot!  For example, getting a good, solid foundation is the key to successfully building a sandcastle that won't crash.

Now we know what those 5-gallon buckets are for --- to fill with sand for our base.

Once you have a solid foundation, then you top it with mud pies. Who doesn't like making mud pies?  We added sand to our water buckets until it made a soupy sand mixture. Then grabbing a handful, we plopped down our mud pies, one on top of the other.

Once your tower is as tall as you want it, the real fun begins! This is when you start carving the sandcastle using those high-tech tools . . . plastic forks, knives, and spoons.

Mark showed us how to make several different roofs for our tower. You can have a thatched roof, shingles, or a "german mushroom". And you can add eaves,with or without scalloped edges.

Then, working our way down the castle, we decorated the tower.  Mark taught us how to make our towers have bricks, "bear claw" marks, add windows and balconies. Even pillars.  And finally, for the base we learned how to carve stairs for our castle.

Everyone was deep in creative thought working on their masterpiece.  What a great Team Building exercise! And finally, after adding that last finishing touch, our sandcastle was done!

For lessons in the Corpus Christi / Port Aransas area, contact Mark Landrum at (361) 290-0414 or lessons@sandrum.com.  www.sandrum.com