Paul Hackney spread out his towel, pitched an umbrella and leaned back against the big renourishment pipe to bask in the April 6 sunshine.
The “glug, glug, glug” of the sand and water coursing through the pipe — from distant Tampa Bay to the renourishment site on north Coquina Beach — was like a sound-soother for the vacationing Hackney.
“Well, it’s almost hypnotic,” he said. His eyelids even looked heavy, and he set down his book for a nap on the shore.
The beach renourishment work under way at Coquina Beach is proving a tourist attraction.
The $6 million project involves renourishing much of severely eroded Coquina Beach, which is maintained by the county, and a .6 mile section of Anna Maria beach north of the Sandbar Restaurant.
The project involves federal, state and local governments, along with contractors Costal Planning and Engineering and Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co.
Great Lakes deployed multiple vessels off Anna Maria Island for the work that began April 2. The ships’ shapes and nightlights, for some, added to the Island ritual of sunset-watching.
And the onshore project enhanced the Island ritual of sunbathing.
Just outside the Coquina Beach work perimeter April 6, dozens of beachgoers set up for a day on the sand, where pipes stretched along the shore.
“I could have gone anywhere away from the work, but it’s fascinating,” said Hackney.
Other beachgoers said the same.
“I posted a photograph of me with the bulldozers in the background to Facebook,” said Justine Waldman of Philadelphia. “The caption said, ‘They’re rebuilding paradise. Wish you were here.’”
Along Gulf Drive near the work site, where several bulldozers pushed, piled and sculpted sand and a soup-like mixture of sand and water bubbled from a massive pipe, dog-walkers, bicyclists, joggers, motorists and stroller-pushers stopped to watch.
“See the backhoes?” a woman asked a child.
“Bulldozers,” he replied, and watched for nearly an hour.
A passerby paused and commented, with sarcasm, “Our tax dollars at work, huh?”
Then he got an earful from a dozen renourishment enthusiasts, including several who drove out to the beach from Bradenton just to watch the action, which will conclude by May 1.
“This — the beach — is what we move here for, so we’ve got to take care of it,” said Terry Williams of Bradenton.