The Isla Blanca Kite Festival

http://aka.kite.org/

The Isla Blanca Kite Festival was started this year as a way to get people to come down and enjoy the beautiful scenery and fly kites on the beach. We also bring kids from a local orphanage to the event and give them a kite to fly, lunch, and a toy to take home. Isla Blanca is mostly undeveloped. Senor Ramon Navarro, owner of the Acapulco Restaurant, is nice enough to let us use the grounds of his restaurant as a staging area for the festival. If you come, you will do kite making with kids who have never owned a kite, Bol races with kids who have never seen one. Kite boarders from the Ikarus Kiteboarding School will be on hand and do demo's. Isla Blanca is "Country" as we know country. Our host hotel is in downtown Cancun. It is close to a lot of local action. Contact Charles for all needed details

we had the most fantastic day yesterday ( Fe 28th )!

we went to Isla Blanca, in our constant pursuit of the wind,

unfortunately we didn´t find it, no problem, because the day before was blowing up to 40 knots! crazy overpowered with my 8 mtr, and short lines, Jayeson was on a 4m.....

anyway,

( I will narrate my verison , However, I will get the right name of -------------)

we met Alan, who, as passionate as he is for kites, he decided to take a lesson with Morph Kiteboarding right on the spot, as we got to know each other, he was telling us a bit more of the history of this kite festival...it is a very impressive history! his Brother is responsible for this Festival from several years ago, they come from all over USA to bring happiness to the kids from the orphanage.

the day started with very light winds 4 to 6 knots, terrible for us, but what a Perfect day for the festival! clean blue skies, light breeze, spectacular light, and a lot of positive energy in the air....

one by one, the kites started to raise into the sky....

all of a sudden I see this Arch, with so many kites, and that`s when I decided, ok, it`s time to go get my camera....

as I was approaching the arch, to get the best shots, this big , smily with a white beard, guy assisted by his wife ( Richard & Marti Dermer ), comes to me, and say : do you want to know the history of this arch??? my immediate answer to this was: please do, tell me so!

in short words, ( I will get the Full story names, dates, festival names), this is a segment of a chain of kites that was built in 1998 and participated in a importat kite festival, and the first chain was made by 250 kites, that after that festival 5 segments fo 50 kites each were sold in an auction, Richard & Marti Dermer bought 2 segments of this, later, in 1999, another festival, 400 kites on a chain, sold later.....they didn´t bought a segment this time..... later in 2003 , another one was made, but this time, there was 650 kites, again sold on an auction, Richard & Marti bought another 40, and put them together, to create this Arch, with the years some kites have been lost, leaving around 120 kites on this Beautiful Arc, you have o idea, you had to be there, to fully appreciate it.....

I also met Melanie " The Teacher of the Kite Color", she put together this hexagonal kite, with only 3 colors, blue, red and yellow, but she built it in such way that when the kite is up in the sky, you can see 6 colors, purple, green, and orange! great concept and a lot of creativity! I need to say that she is also great an the handling of the Revolution kite! wow! she started teaching Adrian and I, and I must say, it´s a challenge!!! I´m definitely getting one of this babies!

she also explained to me how the indoor revolution kites work, and gave me a cathedra of the wind window and the power zone, very impressive to see it from other kite flyer´s point of view.

then I met Sharon Musto and BUd Taylor, they were putting up some kites they brought all the way form Canada EH!, she sews her own kites, which was very impressive, you had to see the precission of the manufacturing of this kites...

this is where I realized something amazing I didn´t know about it, almost all of this guys have created their own kites, they are not just flying them, but it´s their creation! nice! a bunch of passionate people, doing what they love, going back to be kids! I really love what they do!

Bud was playing with his aereal camera, man I was drueling there what a toy!, anyway he has this robotic camera that changes angle every 5 seconds, 360 degrees, and in every angle! very impressive! I´m very exited to see the result of this photoshooting!

there was a rumour that somebody was bringing a octopus....

I suddenly see Alan, walking across everybody with a Very HEAVY backpack, there is when I saw for the first time Mr Charles, ( CHarles A Stewart www.letsflykites.com ), he is a character! and definitely a legend of the kites! at first he is a bit quiet, but eventually he opens up, and I had the opportunitty to chat with him about his giant octopus, something that really surprised me, and I´m embarrased, because this is a very important part of kite history....

the octopus and the Puma, are Peter Lynn ´s creations!!! wow! check this out : http://www.peterlynnkites.com/ another wake up call!!! wow a whole new world discovered man, I guess the olde I get, the childest I get! ;-) keep it morph, keep it real!

we also met Nancy and Andy Myers, they are currently living in Cancun, and they are doing also something very cool, that I will personally start helping them to promote their activity : they run the project GIVE A TOY GET A SMILE http://giveatoygetasmile.org/ where they basically get toys from people all oevr USA and then give them back to kids in orphanges, etc....

we also saw Roberto ( Dr Kite ) and Cira , flying a triple tandem of his creation, great skills Dr Kite!!!