Hi Gary,

Subtlety is not your strong suit is it?  :-)
Nice idea but not sure why there would be a swimming hole on top of a sand dune. :-)
Might do something like that in the future though.
Right now I am focusing on keeping the poly count as low as I can.
Have gotten the ocean down from 2,254,256 polygons to about  45,079 polygons and still able to maintain the waves pretty well.
Did that by reducing the diameter of the scene from 2 miles across to 1.5 miles. Helps the whole scene in that it will allow the 5,700 trees
to be closer together or reduce the amount of trees. Also have yet to reduce the sand base by trimming off the extra polygons around the edge so to speak.
As of right now I have the polygon count down to around 104,553 polygons for the whole scene. Hope to keep it under 200,000 max as I have yet to build the snack stand,
showers and bath building which will be just outside shower heads like I see at the beach here. No interiors on any structures for obvious reasons.
The beach is arched in shape so you can have a camera at either end, and not see the other end, just to help with the infinity I am going for here.
Also added an extension to the pier for the wave break and additional warning light pole. Still need to add ladders and more mooring posts but getting pretty close on the Pier.
Still have a bunch of work to do on the lighthouse textures.
Total pier is 1,383 feet long which is a little over a quarter mile or two or three city blocks. In the distance you can see the road that goes up and over the dune. It ends at a rather large parking lot with stairs to the beach.
Got the boats here.
http://tf3dm.com/3d-models/boat
This set is big but will still be easy on your system resources. The girl at the end of the pier will give you a sense of the scale of this scene.
Boats, Plane and people not included.
Hope you like what I have so far. :-)
Tom