And the number one U.S. beach is...

MIAMI (Reuters) - A stretch of sand off the west coast of Florida near St. Petersburg is America's best beach of 2005, according to a Florida scientist whose annual top 10 list has become a promotional tool for the tourism industry.

Fort De Soto Park's North Beach is a "natural jewel on the finger of a sun-drenched city," Dr. Stephen Leatherman, head of Florida International University's Laboratory for Coastal Research, said on Wednesday.

Leatherman, who calls himself Dr. Beach, described the Gulf of Mexico beach, on an island off St. Petersburg, as a "long, wide, sugar sand beach with great shelling and thriving natural dunes."

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