Sand Fantasies

Some carried tape measures, trowels, putty knives, melon ballers and plant misters. Mostly, the 1,500 people who turned out on Steep Hill Beach in Ipswich, Mass., for the eighth annual sand castle competition were armed with buckets and shovels--the basic tools for molding an uncooperative medium into an image of their fantasies. Among the sculptures were a baby elephant, a dragon and a splendid 14-ft lobster, spray-painted red and accompanied by "melted butter." Six Cambridge artists fashioned the crustacean, and called it Lobster Plate Special $5.95. The purists stuck to castles. Boston Designer Jeff Nathan marshaled 30 helpers to re-create the Dalai Lama's Tibetan palace, while Landscape Architect John Shields of Newton Center, Mass., built a medieval French walled city. But not even the most formidable sculptures could long resist those twin nemeses, wind and tide.

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