The 5th edition of the Cape Fear Kite Festival was a roaring success. The skies were clear but cold with a stiff breeze both days keeping things interesting. With occasional strong gusts, there were a few tangles and crashes and big kites swirling all over the sky. But when the winds behaved, it was spectacular. Everything flies better when you aren't trying to break any records.

Most of the two days, the kites were well behaved but there were some gusts that had kite flyers scrambing to get control of the big kites and relaunch those that needed it. Jim P. had the first kite in the sky Saturday but had to share space with several other sea creatures, including a huge blue whale owned by Joyce & Jeff King. Check the picture below and there's a YouTube link for a great video with sound effects.

Click on a thumbnail to see the full image.

The WACKOS set up on the NE corner of the of the beach near the Shell Island both days. Turns out that was where the wind was cleanest. Jim's Manta & penguin shared space with Al Sparling's Trilobite & devil.	The blue whale, commissioned by Jeff & Joyce King was made by Peter Lynn. He - he's called Mel - is about 100 feet long and very impressive in the sky.	Looking South down the beach from Okra Central. there was a lot of stuff in the sky Saturday.
	There's a video on YouTube of the maiden flight of Mel, the big blue whale with some interesting background music. Check out the video on YouTube at Blue Whale Maiden Flight.
Sunday winds were more of the same but with some higher gusts. With fewer big kites in the air and spaced out a little more, there wasn't as much interference with each other. There was one heavy gust that caused some unusual damage. Jim's Red Devil literally blew up and the same gust caused some damage to the bucket tails on the Manta Ray. If Jim puts some pictures up of the Red Devil, I'll post a link here.	Laura put together a video of the weekend flying and put it out for all to see. Check it out at Laura's Cape Fear video.	These crabs are something new from HQ that are really cool. The wind makes them scuttle back and forth like real crabs and they even leave claw marks in the sand. Click the picture above for a little video of them in action.
Click this Flickr link for more pictures that Jared posted.	Jim Martin also put some photos up on his Fotki album. Click HERE.