Bermuda Feature

The sands of the world's beaches come in many hues, from basaltic black to gleaming quartz white, with a rainbow of red, green, yellow, and brown thrown in—and yes, even pink. Pink sand is considered choice by many beach connoisseurs, and Bermuda's south shore has plenty of it. You'll find the rosy tint of the island's sand most intense in the bright sun of midday, but in the gentler light of early morning and late afternoon the hue can appear darker, tending toward mauve.

In only a few regions where tropical coral reefs flourish offshore do pink-sand beaches form. What makes the sand pink is an amalgam of calcium-rich shells and fragments of invertebrate sea creatures, from minute, single-cell protozoa to spiny sea urchins. Chiefly responsible are foraminifera ("foram" for short), a type of protozoan that lives in great profusion in reef environments. The microscopic red Homotrema rubrum (red foram) variety is numerous both on the reefs and in the ocean sediments that surround Bermuda, and their persistent red pigment remains even in the microscopic "skeletons" these animals leave behind when they die. The red gets mixed in with other (predominantly white) reef debris—broken clam and snail shells, fragments of coral—and, when washed ashore, forms the island's signature pink sand.

The most visited pink-sand beaches are Warwick Long Bay Beach and Horseshoe Bay in Southampton. But just about any beach you visit on the south shore will have the famous sand in abundance.