Photos courtesy Visit Sarasota County

Memorial Day weekend tends to be the last big weekend of season on the Gulf Coast, so tourism leaders here were especially excited to see Siesta Key Beach once again on the 2016 Top 10 Beaches as ranked by Florida International University professor Stephen “Dr. Beach” Leatherman. “It’s a nice little gift,” said Virginia Haley, president of Visit Sarasota County.

Siesta topped Dr. Beach’s list in 2011, and officials here thought that meant the beach was retired from the rankings forever. But in honor the the list’s 25th anniversary, Dr. Beach this year re-opened the rankings to any that had won before. Leatherman spotlighted Siesta both for its famously white sands and also for its wide shore. “The beach is hundreds of yards wide in the shape of a crescent, due to anchoring of onshore rocks to the south,” he wrote. “This beach is great for volleyball and other types of recreational fitness.”

Weatherman, a geologist, famously ranks beaches not just on recreational usability but on the quality of the water and sand. Haley said she had received numerous emails in recent weeks asking for updates on Siesta, and that the doctor had shown particular interest in recent improvements by Sarasota County to limit stormwater runoff. The only beach to beat the Sarasota destination was Hanauma Bay Nature Reserve in Hawaii. And next year, as retirement status presumably goes back into play, that makes Siesta a frontrunner for the top spot.

In some ways, winning the No. 2 now shows more than winning the No. 1 spot in 2011. In 2010, Sarasota ranked behind Coopers Beach in New York, then climbed to the top slot the next year when Coopers was no longer eligible. This year, Coopers came in at No. 8. Winning the top slot served an important purpose in 2011, of course, because the area still was recovering from a tourism slump following the BP oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, and Haley said Dr. Beach’s testimonial informed the world the no oil would be hurting the sands in Sarasota.

Any given year, making the Dr. Beach rankings helps draw travelers from around the globe. “For whatever reason, his list and TripAdvisor just garner huge attention,” Haley said, “and his list has a lot of credibility just because of all the criteria.”

Photos courtesy Visit Sarasota County