Asking for suggestions on building sand islands.

I am contemplating building at least one version of the Chinese development of the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. So now looking at what I would need to do this. This is for FS9. If I can get one to work, I might make several, showing the different stages of development.

I was thinking of using Google Earth images to make a giant bmp file as a scenery tile. Making the edge of the island change in transparency from 0 to 100% to make it look like the sand edge disappearing into the depths.

Can I use the standard wave effects in the \Effects folder to make the wave effects at the edge of the sand, placing them with ADE?

Does Sbuilder have any kind of "sand" tiles?

Will Sbuilder allow me to put these "sand" tiles on the water/background.bmp to "make" land?

If not, how can I make the land part? It is going to be very simple - it's only sand, dead flat, a few metres above high tide.

If not, how can I "make land"? At this late stage, I am not prepared to fork out $$$ to buy any apps.

I can cope with putting objects on the sand, and the dredging ships in the sea, with ADE, to make the bulk of the scenery. I have a number of object libraries and various ships, certainly enough to do the job.

I have never done anything like this, so I will welcome any comments and suggestions from anyone who has had experience in "creating land".