Scores of volunteers, from toddlers to retirees, gathered on Governor’s Beach at 8am on Sunday 3 April, armed with 120 buckets and dozens of toy shovels. Their goal was to build a continuous line of 2,000 sandcastles.
The ambitious project, which lasted five-and-a-half hours, was organized by Zoe Wall, who told the Cayman Compass the idea came about after a reading expo at her children’s school, which focused on the Guinness World Records.
“I said, ‘wouldn’t it be great if we got into the Guinness Book of World Records’, and they got really excited about it,” said Wall. “So, we thought, well, where [do] we live, and the answer is Grand Cayman, then we asked what do we have a lot of, and that answer was sand.”
Wall added, “So, we looked up sand and we had a look at the sandcastle world record, and we saw the longest line of sandcastles would be a good one.”
According to Guinness World Records, the longest line of sandcastles is 1,924. The accomplishment was set in September 2015 in the Netherlands, involving 120 persons.
Wall said they applied to Guinness for permission to attempt to break the record. After months of waiting, they were granted permission in 2021.
“We were meant to do it last summer, but then the COVID restrictions changed, so we had to put it on pause. We thought this was as good a time as any to make the attempt,” Wall said.
Wall and her team of volunteers divided themselves into three main groups.
The first cleared and levelled the sand to create a path for four rows, which were intended to stretch almost the entire length of the governor’s residence. Each row was hoped to hold 500 sandcastles and would connect at each end in an “S” like shape.
The second group was a few feet away at the water’s edge and involved people shuffling to and from the shoreline with seawater, which was needed to shape the sandcastles, which were being moulded and put into place by the third group.
Although the morning began with overcast skies and a cool westerly breeze, weather conditions soon changed. As the breeze died down and the clouds receded, volunteers were forced to call it a day after building a line of 911 sandcastles.
“We tried our best, but the heat got too much,” said Wall. “Five and a half hours and lots of the community coming together – it was a fantastic achievement.”
She added, “Thank you to all who have come out and helped… we haven’t failed. We have learnt.”
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