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July 15, 2018

Sun and Sea Festival - Imperial Beach

Each year Imperial Beach hosts the Sun and Sea Festival with the main attraction being the sandcastles.  These are indeed world-class, award-winning sandcastle builders.  What makes the IB festival unique is there is only a 6 hour window to create an award winning sand sculpture.
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Although the contestants are allowed to stage their equipment and shelters before hand, build of the sandcastles begins promptly at 10 AM with final judging after the tools are set down at 2 PM.  Not much time for the detail some of the design will hold.

Lots of water is used to liquify the sand as it is placed in the forms.  More water will be used to smooth the shapes.
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The water is staged in the big blue 30 gallon tubs provided or hauled up from the ocean as needed.
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Better yet this team has a clever idea that is working for them.  Under the rear wheel of the bike is a water pump and a hose that stretches to the ocean.  The rider says he can pump about 5 gallons a minute.  Much faster and easier than lugging water up by the bucket.
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The Marvel Comics Superheroes are very evident as the theme of this years competition.
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But not all heroes are found in the pages of a comic book
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Or as unassuming as Make a Wish. 
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Besides the sun and the sand there are activities, food music and mermaids! even a few mermen!
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There were two stages, this was a very good group playing Cuban music.  Guess that takes an electric harp!  Haven’t seen one of those before!  But it sure kept this gal dancing.
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No surprise there are a lot of food trucks to pick from.  Most unique was an old fire truck sporting a wood fired pizza oven built into its water tank..  Gotta like the dog wearing his favorite sun shades and sharing a shaved ice with his human.
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Imperial Beach hosts a variety of fun family events.  This last picture is so SoCal and fitting of a morning visit to IB.  There’s dad on his skateboard taking the 5 kids down to do some surfing.
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The 65th OTL World Championship also began this weekend.  Strictly limited to 1200 teams from around the word.  Nephew, Joey, moves on as one of the 150 undefeated teams into next week.  So that may be the blog for next week.

Until then No Bad Days!

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