CAPITOLA — Flocks of visitors from Santa Cruz County and the Bay Area filled Capitola Beach and Esplanade Park on an overcast and misty Saturday afternoon to marvel at the numerous teams participating in the Capitola Beach Festival’s annual Sand Sculpture Contest. The theme of this year’s festival is “Vacation Snapshots.”
“We’ve got about 35 sand sculptures on the beach and they’re just starting to shape up,” said festival co-organizer and Lighted Nautical Parade announcer Laurie Hill. “Next to that is our cornhole event and that’s kind of rag-tag right now, but I always think of it as we put opportunity out on the beach and people come out and play.”
Matt Ritzman of Sandcastles for Josie” creates the classic Capitola postcard design at the Capitola Beach Festival’s Sand Sculpture Contest. The theme of the festival was “Vacation Snapshots.” (Aric Sleeper – Santa Cruz Sentinel)
The Capitola Beach Festival, which is organized by a hard-working group of volunteers each year, serves as the spiritual successor to the Capitola Begonia Festival, founded in the 1950s. The historic Begonia Festival evolved from the Capitola Water Fantasy Carnival, founded by Capitola’s first female Councilmember Peggy Slatter Matthews in 1950. The festival and carnival featured begonia-lined boat parades, swimming competitions and a water ballet. After the water carnival ended in 1954, the Begonia Festival continued on as a Labor Day weekend tradition in Capitola until its final year in 2017 — the 65th anniversary of the festival.
The Capitola Beach Festival, which celebrates its seventh year, preserves many of the traditions of the Begonia Festival such as the lighted Nautical Parade down Soquel Creek, held Saturday evening. The weekend-long beach festival involves various family-friendly activities such as the Little Wharf 3-Miler Fun Run Saturday morning, which saw about 3,000 participants, and continued into the afternoon with cornhole on the beach, a scavenger hunt, an art station for kids and the annual Sand Sculpture Contest.
Participating in the Sand Sculpture Contest for the second year in a row was Hector Cristobal of East Palo Alto, who is a handyman and brought out all of his tools of the trade to Capitola Bach to mold an octopus in the sand.
“The theme is ‘Vacation Snapshots‘ so I want people to be able to take a picture with it,” said Cristobal. “It’s an octopus and there will be a pit in the middle of the tentacles so that a little kid can go in there and get their picture taken.”
Hector Cristobal of East Palo Alto competed in his second Capitola Beach Festival Sand Sculpture Contest on Saturday. (Aric Sleeper – Santa Cruz Sentinel)
Further down the beach from Cristobal was Matt Ritzman of Oakland who was creating the classic Capitola postcard design in the sand to coincide with the festival’s theme. Ritzman’s daughter, Josie, suffers from a neurodegeneration with brain iron accumulation disorder, or NBIA disorder, and he raises awareness about the disorder by building sand castles through the group “Sandcastles for Josie.”
“With this year’s theme of ‘Vacation Snapshots,’ I thought postcards and there’s a little sandcastle in front of it,” said Ritzman. “I need the surface to be flat and consistent and it’s really hard to get sand to be consistent. And so, I’m using different tools to keep it even and this rain is actually helpful because it’s keeping the sand wet.”
Keeping with the theme, John Betts of San Jose and his team were building a scaled-down version of Area 51, which they said was one of the top vacation spots for extraterrestrials. The team members wore tinfoil hats as they sculpted a spaceship and monolith, reminiscent of the film “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
“We decided to do an obelisk and there’s a flying saucer there, and a wormhole,” said Betts. “We were just playing around with the idea of an absurd vacation spot.”
Each year, the extended Golino family gathers in Capitola from all corners of the Bay Area to participate in the many activities at the Capitola Beach Festival. For the Sand Sculpture Contest, the group decided to form a massive crab and a camera in the sand, titled “Snappin’ Selfies.”
“We like to do big sea animals and we wanted to incorporate a camera, and lots of people do selfies on this beach, and the snapping because he’s a crab,” said Martin Bond, who devised the design. “It’s deep.”
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Andrea Robicheau and Liv Johnson show off their go-to sand sculpting tools at the Capitola Beach Festival on Saturday. (Aric Sleeper – Santa Cruz Sentinel)
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For their “Vacation Snapshot-themed sand sculpture, John Betts and friends chose Area 51 at the Capitola Beach Festival Saturday. (Aric Sleeper – Santa Cruz Sentinel)
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The annual Capitola Beach Festival includes numerous activities such as the Cornhole on the Beach competition. (Aric Sleeper – Santa Cruz Sentinel)
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Andrea Robicheau and Liv Johnson show off their go-to sand sculpting tools at the Capitola Beach Festival on Saturday. (Aric Sleeper – Santa Cruz Sentinel)
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Cousins Andrea Robicheau of Mountain View and Liv Johnson of Santa Cruz had nearly completed a sailboat sculpture in the sand titled “Come Sail Away.” The two-person team were participating in the Sand Sculpture Contest for the first time, although they’d wanted to for many years.
“My dad died four months ago and so I am trying to do the things I’ve always wanted to do,” said Robicheau. “And I’ve always wanted to do a sand sculpture contest so I made it happen and I brought my cousin along.”
The beach was packed with visitors observing as the approximately 35 teams created temporary works of sand art, such as Sarah Levy of Los Altos, who has attended the Capitola Beach Festival for about six years in a row.
“The squid and the octopus are really impressive and the banana slugs and the kids making the turtle there,” said Levy. “I just feel like Capitola Beach is a really welcoming and friendly spot and living in the Los Altos area, it’s not too far. And I consider this to be a celebration of the end of summer.”
The festival continues Sunday at 7 a.m. with a fishing derby on the Capitola Wharf, a paddle board race, chalk art on the sea wall and rowboat races at 1 p.m., among other beach activities.
For information, visit capitolabeachfestival.com.
IF YOU GO
What: Capitola Beach Festival.
When: From 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., Sunday.
Where: Capitola Beach, Esplanade Park.
Cost: Free.
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