Long Sands Beach — Attraction in York

My husband and I came here to hunt for sand dollars and had a grand time! Here's our experience with it. I brought a full face snorkeling mask and a sand dipper for this and found about 59 sand dollars over 4 days!

Quick summary: You won't find them on the beach, you have to go out about waist deep at low tide and look underwater for sandbars they get stuck in!

Detailed experience: The northern half of Long Beach after Sun & Surf Restaurant seems better suited to sand dollar hunting (roughly a straight line from Mimmo's Italian Restaurant to the water was a good spot when we went). We didn't see any (whole) sand dollars on the beach itself, and only found some by getting into the water.

One hour before low tide walk along the beach and look for black sand with bits of sea shells, then walk out about waist deep into the water. At about waist depth, you should hopefully start to see large clam shells littering the sand in a shallow trough/along a sand bank of dark sand, like a clam graveyard. This is where you can snorkel for sand dollars.

The one we had success with seemed to be a trail formed by the current rushing past a huge boulder around this section of the water (you can see the boulder as a black dot on Google Maps in satellite view). There should be sand dollars littering these paths, at times partly buried in the sand or caught under rocks or shells.

If you follow the current back towards the beach, you may see more of these sand troughs, littered with huge clam shells and the occasional sand dollar (be careful not to be swept away if you do this, you could get slammed/scraped against large rocks). If you hit a section of beach that looks like pure white sand with no more shells, you've drifted too far. I found that if I stayed pretty much in the section of water aligned with Mimmo's Italian Restaurant the whole time, I had plenty of shells to pick through.

When looking for the sand dollars, look out for curved edges sticking out of the sand with no concentric ridges, or the characteristic star pattern. They are very lightweight and do tend to sit on top of the sand, so you might not have to look too hard. They range in colour from white to grey to a faint orange from what we found so far. Do not take any live sand dollars (they will have a "hairy" bottom surface if they are alive, though I didn't see any while we were there).

On each of the days, I fished out around anywhere from 9-21 sand dollars in 2 hours (the hour before low tide and after) this way! I could have gone longer, but the water was very cold (around 60F). Maybe suiting up better would help. Two of the dives happened in the low tide right after storms throughout the night, so there may have been more than usual to grab, your mileage may vary.

Overall terrific experience! Nice clean beaches and a fun time shelling if you can tolerate the cold water. If you're not staying nearby, it might be worth it to arrive early as the (ample) parking along the whole length of the beach fills up fast. Besides the beachcombing, there were also lots of fun hermit crabs and little beach crabs scuttling around to enjoy. At night, the rocks jutting out towards the ocean behind Sun & Surf has tidal pools housing lots of little (palm or smaller) sized crabs to...

We were visiting the area with our two nine year olds and this beach was recommended to us, and certainly didnt dissapoint. Parking could be difficult depending on time of year and time of day. We went early and arrived around 11am and were able to find parking. Its an app based meter system so you will have to spend a few minutes figuring it out. It wasn't outrageous cost wise, $9 or so for a few hours. Note if you going all day, there are all day parking lots that were advertised for $30 nearby which is clearly more bang for your buck. The nice thing about the street parking is that it's right along the beach, which made shuttling things very easy. The beach was pretty clean, no real trash to speak of, but they also dont have bins, so everything you bring, you take away. Mind the tide. When we arrived it was high tide so the was fairly close to the beach access stairs. When we left it was going out and I bet there was an additional football field worth of beach in front of us. If it was going the other way and you aren't paying attention you could lose stuff to the ocean. The water is frigid. The board at the lifeguard stand said it was 55 degrees. Sounds nice on a hot day, but the temperature swing is extreme when you go from the beach to the water. We still got it and swam, but be prepared. The beach wasn't real rocky, it consisted mostly of smooth gray and brown sand mixture, which made it easy on the feet. The waves were great for low key surfing or Boogie boarding. Certainly it was a great spot...

I have been coming here for years. I used to enjoy it. I’ve been having a miserable week. I used to be able to bring an “easy up” tent, and now I can’t. Current regulations only allow a small umbrella or a sport brella. I’m sitting under a “Sport-Bella” roasting under this umbrella that traps the heat in the sun.

There are fairly new regulations outlawing certain sunshades (3 years?). I’m not quite sure what the idea was, but I am very fair and cannot sit in the sun for long periods of time. My husband recently had skin tint, cancer, taken off of his nose and ear. He can’t sit in the sun either. I burn easily and I find it uncomfortable; however, I do enjoy coming to the beach if I have adequate sun cover.

I’m not sure if I’ll be coming back next summer. I have been trying different accommodations for the sun, but I have not found anything that works well enough and this is not an enjoyable vacation when I am roasting under my sunshade.

That makes me sad to think after 20 years I might not be back, however; I cannot tolerate sitting in the sun, all day, and sitting under this sunshade is too hot.

I used to enjoy coming to the beach and sitting under my easy up in the shade, but since that is no longer available to me, I might have to bid goodbye to my Maine vacations.

I spend too much money on a weeks stay and dinners out to not enjoy my time at the beach. I’ve also noticed fewer and fewer bathers at the beach, and wonder if others...