Your salt flats comment calls to mind certain areas of the Exumas, an archipelago in the Bahamas, specifically in the cuts between cays where the tidal flows drain from the sounds onto or off of the flats. It is possible to sail into what appears to be uninterrupted shallow ocean, anchor, sleep, and wake to find yourself floating in what is essentially a puddle surrounded by limitless, gently undulating waves of glistening sand in every direction, trapped until the tide reverses. Surreal, ethereal, alien.

Seconded. Inquiring minds want to know.