AKA Nationals 2004

Today is October 10 2004. We are in Cannon Beach, Oregon - our base for the next week while we attend the American Kite Association (AKA) National Convention in Seaside, just a few miles north of here. Today is registration day and activities begin tomorrow (Tuesday).



Today is a beautiful sunny day and the weather guy is promising more of the same for the rest of the week.

Day One

Today (Tuesday) was the first full day of convention activity. Joani and I attended some good seminars during the morning and a mass ascension for soft kites at noon.


If you look closely you will see one of the famous Goat Hill sled kites in the upper left corner of the photo.

The sky was full of beautiful kites including some big show kites like the ones in the photo below, made by Peter Lynn of New Zealand. It is hard to judge scale in the photo but these kites are really BIG, about 30 feet wide.



There were sport kite competitions in the afternoon and an incredible indoor kite flying demos and competition in the evening.

It was a great first day with good weather and mostly good wind, except for a lull in mid-afternoon in the middle of the sport kite competition.

Day 3

Judging for handcrafted kites began today. In these competitions there are no experience-level classifications like there are at the Washington State event we attended in August. All entries are judged against each other, meaning that beginners like myself are competing with the Masters. I decided to enter a couple of kites anyway, just for the experience of being in an AKA National event, so here you see my little Sponge Bob flying with the big boys in the Soft and Flexible category. We won't know the results until Saturday's awards banquet.



One of the entries in the Delta category was a kite with a 60 foot wingspan. It uses a spreader made of 3 inch diameter aluminum pipe.



Surprisingly, in view of the light winds that we were having at the time, it flew beautifully.



Tomorrow I enter my Tiger in the Rokkaku event so am hoping for a continuation of the good weather we have been enjoying. Day 1

Today (Tuesday) was the first full day of convention activity. Joani and I attended some good seminars during the morning and a mass ascension for soft kites at noon.



If you look closely you will see one of the famous Goat Hill sled kites in the upper left corner of the photo.

The sky was full of beautiful kites including some big show kites like the ones in the photo below, made by Peter Lynn of New Zealand. It is hard to judge scale in the photo but these kites are really BIG, about 30 feet wide.



There were sport kite competitions in the afternoon and an incredible indoor kite flying demos and competition in the evening.

It was a great first day with good weather and mostly good wind, except for a lull in mid-afternoon in the middle of the sport kite competition.

Last Day

The Nationals finished in the rain yesterday but overall the weather was good and we had a great time.

Sidney BC

From Port McNeil we spent two days making our way back to the south end of Vancouver Island where we will catch the ferry back to the mainland. We are camped at a pretty little RV park on the water near Sidney. The weather has been spectacular for the past week or so.

You can’t come to Vancouver Island without visiting the famous Butchart Gardens and the nearby Butterfly Gardens, so we did that today.





The plan for tomorrow is to take the BC Ferry to Tsawwassen and then drive back across the border into the US and then south to the Seattle area.