Building hotels in Kerala, India from 2010 to 2017 we came to know about sand pirates from a very close up perspective. When their boats were speeding past the houseboats we operated, we detected the carefree sense with which they carried out their mission. Perhaps they did not know the damage they were doing? Not likely. The law was chasing them, and they knew that for sure. Thanks to Genevieve Valentine for this review titled A Day At The Beach Won’t Be The Same After ‘The World In A Grain’ about this book to the left:

The first time you see ‘sand piracy,’ it might sound surreal — a misguided Pixar villain whose lackeys race down the beach with empty buckets and sinister intent, doomed to fail in the face of a resource that spans the whole ocean.

Then you find out about someone stealing 1,300 feet of sand from a beach in Jamaica, or the many sand miners whose dredgers suck sand from the ocean floor by the ton and, suddenly, it doesn’t sound as funny — or as impossible — as it did before. Continue reading →