These are stories of rough seas, crashing waves and long underwater voyages. Although our beautiful beaches appear to be white, take a close look and you will see that they are made up of a variety of colours of sand grain. White, pink, black and orange are only a few of the colours you will see. Our beaches are predominantly white because the sand grains come mostly from the coral reefs that surround our islands. A coral is made up of thousands of tiny coral polyp animals that live together in a colony supported by a hard, chalk-like skeleton.
Many corals living together form a coral reef.
During high seas, storms and hurricanes, coral reefs can take a battering as waves crash down upon them. Large pieces of coral are broken off and carried great distances leaving small pieces along the way. During many years of rolling along the ocean floor, the large pieces of broken coral will release small white grains of sand that become free to embark upon their own journey, tiny travellers in a vast sea of blue. Theirs is a brave story about building and protecting the coral reef. These grains are made of the same material as the white grains, but they are pink because of red algae, commonly called reef cement, which has grown on the coral reef.