Most motus are quite well vegetated, but one small example at Tubuai is completely bare and composed of a white coral sand beach. Called Motu One (pronounced O-nay), it is barely 250m long and 50m wide and is located on the reef crest on the north side of Tubuai, a small island in the Austral Island Group of French Polynesia, about 600km south of Tahiti…

Playa Mar Chiquita, or the beach of the small sea, is located near the eastern end of the long ridge of eolianite exposed on the coast of Manatí in northern Puerto Rico, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of San Juan. Playa Mar Chiquita was once a popular secluded beach with a beautiful setting of palm trees, golden sand, and the imposing ridge of pitted eolianite that serves as a contrasting background for the blue clear sky, blue water, and sand…

Isles Bay Beach is a small, embayed beach located on the western side of the Caribbean Island of Montserrat. This mountainous island is a British oversees territory, less than 20 square miles in area and dominated primarily by the Soufriere Hill Volcano.

Morris Island Lighthouse is now located over 1,500 feet out to sea on a sand shoal surrounded by a small seawall. The relatively deep 35-foot foundation of the spindle has allowed it to continue standing as the land moved out from under it. Originally constructed a quarter-mile behind the beach, the lighthouse has survived storms, rising sea level, and barrier island migration since 1876.

Situated on the Baltic Sea coast of Latvia, Jurmala Beach runs unbroken for over 30km along the Gulf of Riga. The beach is frozen and snow-covered in winter but in summer is a popular bathing area.

Cabanas Velhas, meaning old huts, is a small embayed beach located in the southern Algarve, about 20 km east of Cape St Vincent. Composed of pre-Ordovician shale and greywacke cliffs in the west and Jurassic to Miocene limestone and marlstone cliffs in the south, this rocky shoreline is punctuated by several embayed or pocket beaches.

Artist Mary Edna Fraser lives on an intertidal creek in Charleston, South Carolina. Although having depicted coastal regions around the world, it is this landscape that she knows best. Much of the city of Charleston lies at about eight feet above sea level and when high tide combines with a little rain, flooding is rampant all over the city.

Caminada Headland is a 22.5 km (14 mile) long beach (part of which is called Elmer’s Island) that projects out in to the Gulf of Mexico from the central Mississippi River Delta. This undeveloped beach was once an unbroken stretch of fine sand with extraordinary fishing and bird-watching opportunities. The birds and fish remain, but unfortunately hurricanes have breached the beach in many places.