Letter to the Editor

+ Longboat Key’s beach is its best attribute
Dear Editor:
The best thing about Longboat Key is the beach. When I first moved to Florida, I lived near the airport. One day I was teaching a class and a student, a woman from Boston who had known me for a long time, said, “Anne, I’ve found your beach.”

Together we went to Whitney Beach, which I fell in love with — with its wide expanse of white sand and many birds and sand dollars. The other reason I love this beach is that there is no one on it most of the year. It is a truly quiet and remote beach. Siesta Key may have the best beach according to the experts, but there are too many people towel-to-towel on the sand for my taste. My friend knew the kind of beach I liked.
Unfortunately, the last renewal of sand was terrible. The sand is dark and it is eroding too quickly. The water is now taking down the bushes trying to hold back the erosion, and a cliff is forming, which makes it difficult for me to get down to the beach. Because beautiful sand is being put on the beach just north of Whitney Beach, I am hoping that soon that sand will come to us.

But the only way I can keep some sanity in this strange world is to look at the beach from my condo and know that the real world is still there, the ocean, sand and sky. I can’t imagine what else people would move here for.
Anne G. Arsenault
Longboat Key