17 July 2020

The 7 color shades of Fuerteventura's sand

Fuerteventura offers a multitude of magnificent beaches with practically unlimited chromatic varieties of sand.

A lot of beautiful varied landscapes, all on the same island.

There are almost all the color ranges, from white to black, through brown, gold and yellow.

The color palette becomes endless influenced by other factors such as the thickness of the grains, dust or pebbles, shells and everything that the ocean brings.

Sun and clouds influence the colors as well, depending on the time of day beaches may change in a huge variety of hues..

In Fuerteventura you can find beaches made of:

White sand

They say it is the whitest sand of the Canary Islands, in some places it looks like snow. It is irregular and dense. It is the product of tropical fish eating coral. The stomach of these fish crushes the coral and discards it in the form of sand. A single fish can produce one ton of sand throughout its life.

El Cotillo - Fuerteventura

Black sand

A very heavy sand in which there are olivine crystals, a volcanic stone quite precious, of a dark greenish color. During the summer the sea brings golden sand which covers the black surface and changes the appearance of this beach.

Golden sand

This sand does not come only from the Sahara desert through the strong wind, as is commonly believed, but it comes especially from the bottom of the sea, sure enough we can find thousands rests of crushed shells in the sand. This is the famous 'beige' shade that identifies the beautiful Dunes of Corralejo in the world. (protected natural park).

Yellow sand

This sand originates from the erosion of the rocks that mark out the location that produces an intense orange/yellow color.

Brown sand

In many spots on the island there are beaches with brown hues. More in detail there is one in the center of Fuerteventura composed by artificial sand, unique in the whole island. This beach was made with sand directly brought from the Sahara desert.

Gray sand

It is a subtle gray sand that rises even with very little wind. It ranges from light to dark gray when wet. It was extracted from the bottom of the sea to fill the beach.

Multicolor sand

This sand contains yellow, black and golden grains and often red, orange and white shells. All these ingredients combine themselves to create a multicolor sand in all these beaches.