Well this event was a lot of fun despite the weather which was incredible. The Wednesday we arrived and the Thursday were pretty decent day's as was the start of Friday. Our host Mike Johnson of Beach Graffiti with sponsers Escapes and the "Foley" Beach Express, treated us with great hospitality. From a comfortable stay at the Hampton Inn, to the food at Doc's,Jak's,Bubba's and Franco's, to the great people this is an event I will look forward to in the future.

The competition as well as the rain ran through the day on Friday and Saturday. Saturday even had some sleet and winds in the afternoon pushed the rain nearly horizontal. Every time I would do any sort of detail it would be washed out by the rain. I tried to leave things larger to compensate, in the hopes I would be able to do the detail on Sunday which was supposed to be a good weather day.

Well Sunday was a good weather day, an excellent day. However Saturday evening was a little bit more then most of the sculptures could endure. Our evening at dinner was interupted with a call over the resturant Pa system asking all the patrons to go to the kitchen until the tornado had passed.

We arrived later on to find the rains had subsided but they had left a terrible toll. Not only were there heavy rains and winds over 70 miles per hour but the tide washed up over the beach destroying some of the sculptures and leaving the ground saturated until part way through Sunday morning.

Craig Mutch's piece suffered the most as it was the lowest point of the sculpting area. About a foot of water surrounded it on Sunday and much of it was broken or washed completely away. Joe Maise also had his sculpture extensively destroyed. My piece suffered a lot of damage also. I tried to save part of it but this was, in hind sight, probably not the correct approach.