The Sun & Sea Festival returned to Imperial Beach for 2024, attracting a good crowd as usual. And, as always, the annual event beside the Imperial Beach Pier featured sand sculptures!
A monumental sand mega castle was being finished by a group of local artists late this morning when I walked through the festival.
The “Back 2 IB” sculpture celebrates nostalgia. Carved into the sand are fun retro images that bring back fond memories of the 1980s, from Back to the Future, to Ghostbusters, to E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, to Cabbage Patch Kids, to Rubik’s Cube, to Pac-Man. (I’ll be sharing more photos of the amazing sand sculpture in my next blog post!)
The festival also featured a Kids-n-Kastles competition, with 15 team entries built on the beach north of the pier. There was no adult competition this year. Sadly, there weren’t enough sponsors.
The COVID pandemic and sewage coming from the Tijuana River polluting the ocean off Imperial Beach have visibly hurt this long-running event, not to mention the Imperial Beach community and local businesses. Nobody was out in the water, apart from several surfers who were seriously risking their health.
I spoke to people at a Surfrider Foundation tent. They said very slow progress is being made to solve the sewage problem. The ocean here has been off limits for about two years now. It’s a problem that seems to have no end.
In spite of this, however, there was plenty of fun to be had at the 2024 Sun & Sea Festival! Lots of food! Live music! A fantastic location and SoCal beach vibe!
Here are my photos…
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Looks like a beautiful day out!
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It sure was!
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