Sandcastle Team Builds Navy SEAL Sculptures

Originally published 1:56 p.m. Aug. 7.

Sandcastle team I.B. Posse built sand sculptures and helped the families of Navy SEALs on Saturday in Coronado.

The team gave tips to families building their own sandcastles for a friendly competition and built sand sculptures of the Navy SEAL emblem and Underwater Demolition Team mascots Sammy the Seal and Freddy the Frog.

The sandcastles were built as part of the 24th Annual Naval Special Warfare (NSW) West Family Campout, a joint event held by the U.S. Navy and Navy SEAL Family Foundation on Saturday and Sunday, said Lt. Christine Gargan with the Naval Special Warfare Center.

More than 75 families participated.

"The event featured the chance for NSW families to spend the day doing activities related to the SEAL (Sea, Air, Land) and SWCC (Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewman) communities, as well as spend the night on the same beach where SEAL and SWCC candidates train," she said.

Using cell phones and mobile devices, some spouses of service members deployed abroad had Skype dates in front of the sandcastle.

"That was really touching," I.B. Posse Team Captain Leonard Gonzales said. "It made the whole experience that much more real for us, that we were actually helping guys that are out in the field, that we're interacting with their families and helping their families while they're off doing incredible work across the ocean for us, doing things most of us wouldn't be able to do."

In 2011 I.B. Posse won first place and $5,000 at the final U.S. Open Sandcastle Competition for their sand sculpture "Thank You Troops." 

In June, the team took part in the Sun & Sea Festival, a successor of the U.S. Open Sandcastle Competition, and next month will defend their title at the U.S. Sand Sculpting Challenge on a pier in downtown San Diego.

"Being from San Diego and IB we have so much of a connection to the military, it's such a big part of our community, and we feel like we should pay tribute to them whenever we get the opportunity," Gonzales said.

On the side of one of the sculptures I.B. Posse inscribed a tribute to Tyrone "Ty" Woods, a former SEAL who died saving American lives following a terrorist attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Lybia on Sept. 11, 2012.

Woods was an Imperial Beach resident but was also known to frequent Coronado.

"We've had some contact with different people that are either related or somehow affiliated with Tyrone so we just felt like that would be good because he was an IB person," Gonzales said. "It was also important that we didn't overdo it, the tribute to him, because the SEALs, along with all the military families, have lost people."