Newport Beach Sand Castle Contest

Castle Repo won the best overall

I have always been intrigued by pictures of sand sculptures and well executed sand castles and have always wanted to see them "up close and personal" and to see how they are brought to fruition.  A few weeks ago I went up to the Hueneme Beach Festival to see the sand sculptures from their contest, but there weren't very many to see, so I still felt the need to investigate further.

I recently saw that there was going to be a sand castle contest in Newport Beach, but there was also going to be a big kite festival in Seal Beach the same day, during the same time frame.  What to do?  What to do?  Such a dilemma!  Both sounded like they would present great photo ops and I was really torn as to which I should attend.  In the end, I opted for the Newport Beach Sand Castle Contest.  I marked my calendar and hoped there would be a good display.  (There is a list of the awards given out on the above link as well.)

So, this past Sunday was the big day and I headed down to Corona Del Mar's Big Corona Beach.  Unfortunately, it was an overcast day and I got there about an hour or so into the building stage and started snapping pics of all the works in progress.  Then, once they were completed I went back through to get snaps of all the final works of art.  My apologies to the youngest team (under 12 years old), as I somehow missed getting pics of their work in progress!  Congratulations on your honorable mention, though!

I am posting the pictures of the in-progress snaps side by side with the finished masterpiece snaps!  :-)  Some of them required multiple shots of the finished product, so there may be more than one "after" pic for some of them!  It seems everyone, or most everyone, ended up winning some type of award, which made it all worth it, I'm sure, for all the people involved.  I enjoyed seeing all the ideas they came up with and thought they did a great job!  It sure made me want to grab a bucket and give it a try myself!  Maybe one of these days I'll get a chance to! 

It is difficult to see this one, but it is an archaeological dig, complete
with skulls, bones, a treasure chest and  shovels.

Since the pics display so small here, you can't see the jersey
 for Favre in the back.  You sports fans will get it!

Master sandcastle builders in the making!  These boys
won the junior division!  Great job, guys!

On the way home I decided to swing by Seal Beach to see if there were any kites still in the air.  As I got to Huntington Beach, I found myself slipping out from under the overcast skies to clear blue skies.  When I got to Seal Beach there were still a few kites in the air and I saw some HUGE kites on the sand.  I'll bet they were wonderful to see in the sky.  I was too lazy to try to find parking and walk down to get some pics.  And I was worried that if I did manage to find parking and get down there, by the time I did, the kites that were still flying would have been reeled in and put to bed already.  But, the little taste I did get driving by made me realize I need to make sure to watch for and get to the next Japan America Kite Festival!


So, my friends, my next planned day trip will be to the Via Arte Italian Chalk Paintings in Bakersfield.  Hopefully, I'll have a little something more to share on that soon!  Another upcoming day trip I have in mind is a trek to the Kinetic Sculpture Race.  Now there's something you don't see everyday!  I hope you'll stay tuned and come along to see what I find!


I'd love to hear about some of the interesting or unusual events in your neck of the woods if you'd care to share!