WOOOOOOOOOOW!!!
– everyone
It was but a dream.
Yet it was perfectly, unbelievably real.
A kite workshop we could only dream of was happening right there in front of us, under the watchful eyes of Žuža and Žare, deep in the adrenaline forest of Lopar on Rab Island, Croatia.
Unlike our never-ending, rolling, chaotic, death metal soundtracked workshops that produce hundreds of kites and invariably end with our complete physical and mental collapse, this was an Ordnung und Disziplin kind of event. Zmajoljupci – Croatian kite association are smart people with years of experience who work with children so effortlessly that a workshop lasting an hour or so looks calm, pleasant, orderly, and almost suspiciously easy.
Trust us. Easy it is not.
But it was so soothing to watch some thirty children sit down, pick up their paper, tape the edges in perfect unison, decorate their kites with crayons, with some of them producing veritable flying works of art, in concentrated silence for half an hour, tape on the sticks together, patiently wait because “If you are done, wait until everyone finishes this step!”, attach the bridle, and finally gather for the cutest group photo imaginable.
And then run down to the beach to fly the kites they had made entirely by themselves.
We almost had tears in our eyes.
This kite workshop, or rather two of them, held in Avanterra Park, an adrenaline park tucked away in the forest beside Paradise Beach in Lopar on Rab Island, was part of a cunning plan devised by Darko, the master of adrenaline: to turn Rab into the Island of Kites.
To persuade the right people on the island to organise a proper kite festival.
It’s impossible to explain a kite festival to someone who has never seen one. No stories, no glossy photographs, no spectacular drone footage or fascinating videos can truly convey the magnificent aerial ballet that only dozens of giant kites can create. One simply has to witness a kite festival to understand what an extraordinary event it is, and how it can instantly transform a slightly sleepy tourist village. Lopar consists almost entirely of apartments, hotels, campsites, and beaches. Add a sky full of flying monsters, and suddenly it becomes a destination people remember for years.
So Darko asked Žuža and Žare to organise a sort of a demo version of a kite festival, a proto-festival that might give birth to a real one. They invited us to beef up the number of airborne beasts, and off to Rab we went!
Rab is an island in Kvarner Bay, just off the mighty Velebit mountain range on the Croatian mainland. It is only 22 kilometres long and 10 kilometres wide, yet its history stretches all the way back to the Greeks and Romans. Its most famous son, born right in the village of Lopar, is Saint Marino, founder of the eponymous Republic of San Marino.
Getting there is half the fun. First you drive across the bridge to the island of Krk, then board a ferry to Rab. And the moment we rolled onto the ferry, the mood changed completely.
Rab is full of delightful geological, geographical, and climatic oddities. The northeastern side is almost barren, while the largest surviving Adriatic oak forest, Quercus ilex, blankets the southwestern part of the island. The towns and villages nestle in places where the mighty Bora roaring down from Velebit cannot quite reach them. Fertile valleys flourish on flysch, even though the island itself is predominantly limestone, and countless deep bays and coves carve up the coastline. Lopar’s crown jewel is Paradise Beach, a two-kilometre stretch of fine sand that is almost an anomaly on the Croatian Adriatic, where rugged rocks normally reign supreme.
And this beach was to become the main stage of the future Rab Kite Festival.
Provided, of course, that this little proto-festival turned out to be a success.
On average, the wind was perfect!
– Žare
The kite workshop was over and it was finally time to fly some proper kites on the beach. We pitched the tent, filled the sandbags, rolled out the lines, attached the aerial monsters, and …
… absolutely nothing.
The beach was missing that single ingredient every kite festival requires. That magical thing beginning with the letter “W”.
Wind.
A demonstration festival has to be spectacular if it is to give birth to a real festival. Sad sacks of nylon lying limply on the sand are unlikely to persuade investors to open their wallets. Kites have one rather inconvenient requirement.
They need to fly.
After some serious negotiations with the Gods of Wind, they graciously granted us a gentle breeze, just enough to lift a trilobite or two and one large lifter. The kites danced precariously, producing barely enough pull to raise a couple of spinners, while Žare marched up and down the beach dragging a shark across the sand, stubbornly convinced that sheer determination might eventually persuade it to become airborne.
It would, albeit reluctantly.
For experienced kite flyers, the whole affair felt just a little pathetic. Our kite-trained brains and centres of higher reasoning were pleading with us to leave the nylon where it was, retreat to the nearby beach bar, and conduct further atmospheric research over a couple of cold ones.
The crowds, however, saw something entirely different.
“AAAAAAAH! LOOK AT THAT!”
“Would you like to hold the line?”
“MUUUUUM! LOOK! I’M A PILOT NOW!”
What looked to us like a handful of kites barely clinging to the sky was nothing short of magical for the children.
And for the parents. And for the café owners. And for just about everyone else on the beach.
We simply forget that sometimes, spoiled as we are by skies packed with enormous inflatable monsters dancing in perfect wind.
People gathered around us to feel the pull of the lines. Children darted everywhere, trying to catch the line laundry fluttering overhead. Then the breeze strengthened, because the Gods of Wind are clearly very fond of happy children, and gradually more and more things found their way into the sky.
Meanwhile, the local shop selling small kites was practically robbed. Before long, little butterflies, ladybirds, dragons, eagles, and every other colourful flying creature imaginable had joined their gigantic cousins overhead.
No, we didn’t fill the entire sky above Paradise Beach. There simply weren’t enough of us for that.
But for a demonstration festival …
… it was almost perfect.
So naturally, we became just a little cocky.
Night flying was on!
The Adriatic coast of Croatia is a sailor’s paradise. But the main reason for that is not the incredible sea, dotted with hundreds of islands and islets, beautiful bays and coves, and blessed with reliable winds. No, the real secret is that the winds usually die away in the evening, allowing sailors to anchor safely, sleep soundly, and wake up exactly where they left the boat instead of somewhere halfway to Italy.
The nights on the beach are wonderfully calm.
We had brought a couple of LED kites and had spent the entire day enthusiastically bragging about the fantastic, mind-blowing aerial light show everyone was about to witness.
And the night was wonderfully calm.
“Žare, there is no wind.”
“I know… perhaps we should check the other beach!”
The other beach was only about five hundred metres away. While Rab’s microclimates can be surprisingly different over short distances, it is generally considered impossible to have absolutely no wind on one beach and a pleasant breeze just across the peninsula.
Rab, however, has never shown much respect for what is generally considered possible.
Across the little headland the wind was, well, noticeable. Barely, but enough. Soon two glowing white LED trilobites were floating gracefully above the sea.
“OOOOOoooooooOOOOOOO!”
It was magical. And, as you can see, it was brief.
At precisely ten o’clock everything sagged out of the sky, and we retreated to our base in remarkably good spirits. According to the forecast, the second day promised a glorious 15 to 20 km/h breeze.
Now that sounded like proper kite weather.
The second day began with another wonderfully calm and perfectly organised kite workshop for children. Once lunch was over, a small scouting party headed down to the beach to see whether the weather forecast had been telling the truth for once.
Not a blade of grass was moving.
The scouts visited Paradise Beach.
Nothing.
They crossed the little cape to Livaćina Beach.
Nothing.
The wind had apparently resigned from active duty.
Morale dropped accordingly. There seemed little point in hiking over yet another hill in search of an invisible breeze. The sun was mercilessly pounding down, and the only sensible tactical decision was a nice pausa de hidratación.
As the cold ones were disappearing at a highly respectable rate, something extraordinary happened.
The Blue Flag, proudly announcing the exceptional quality of Paradise Beach, twitched.
Then fluttered.
Then actually started waving.
“You saw that?”
The flag fluttered harder. Leaves began whispering. Palm fronds joined in. Someone’s beach towel attempted a daring but unsuccessful escape.
“Bottoms up! Let’s go!”
We exploded into action.
Within minutes we had hauled the mountain of equipment down to the beach, erected the tent, filled the sandbags, rolled out the lines, and before long the sky was filling with flying giants.
The panda. The shark. The orca. Every spinner we had.
And our giant Human Fish, Proteus maximus.
The wind kept strengthening until conditions became almost perfect. Little kites once again joined their enormous airborne relatives, crowds gathered all around us, cameras appeared from every direction, and for a glorious moment one could clearly imagine what a genuine Rab International Kite Festival might look like, with colourful creatures filling the sky above Paradise Beach.
Then the wind decided that “perfect” was merely a warm-up.
The trilobite was the first to send out an unmistakable SOS by swinging violently from side to side, while Proteus maximus developed a distinctly bad attitude and began making increasingly enthusiastic sweeps across the beach and the unsuspecting children.
Sand started flying. Then more sand. Then all the sand.
The wind grew stronger and stronger.
We hurriedly brought the trilobites down while the giant Croatian lifter suddenly developed an intense curiosity about a nice German family quietly enjoying their afternoon.
Imagine the scene.
You’re sitting comfortably in the shade, reading a good book. Your children are happily playing nearby. Cicadas provide the soundtrack. Life is beautiful.
Then, without the slightest warning, sixty-four square metres of red-and-white nylon descend from the heavens and swallow your family whole.
“Sorry, sorry …. No! No! Don’t try to lift it!”
Gregor wrestled the enormous lifter back under control while the rest of us retreated to what we generously called the safety of our tent.
Relative safety, at best.
By then the wind was enthusiastically trying to rip the tent free from its anchors and convert it into yet another giant kite.
Sand was everywhere. Not just on everything. In everything.
The grains flew a full metre above the ground, found its way into people’s eyes, hamburgers, chips, cameras, backpacks, and, most tragically of all, into perfectly innocent glasses of beer.
Everything had become crunchy.
There was no chance of rolling up the giant kites in those conditions. We simply piled sandbags onto the heaps of nylon and hoped they would remain somewhere in the general vicinity of Croatia.
After what felt like an hour, the wind eased enough for us to stuff everything into bags, grab whatever had not yet blown away, and retreat with what little dignity remained.
“That was cool!”
Žare was grinning.
“This wind could stay up late. Let’s get ready for night flying!”
We looked at one another.
The Gods of Wind had finally started taking us seriously.
Unfortunately, we all knew they also had an excellent sense of humour.
Livaćina Beach was a much better choice for our second attempt at lighting up the night sky, so we packed everything up, relocated across the little peninsula, and set up camp once again.
After the afternoon mayhem the wind had settled into a strong but steady breeze, and everything looked absolutely perfect for an aerial light show.
This time we were taking no chances.
We rigged everything well before sunset. One LED trilobite carried the glowing astronaut, while the other proudly hauled the illuminated Nautilus. The plan was simple: send the lifter kites high enough that, even if the wind died near the ground, they would still catch the stronger breeze some eighty metres above.
It was textbook. The wind was magnificent. Everything flew beautifully. All we had to do was wait for darkness.
And then darkness arrived from across the Adriatic.
It took away the light.
And the wind.
The very instant we switched on the LEDs, the kites began sinking towards the beach.
As if the Gods of Wind had suddenly shouted: “CUT!”
By then quite a crowd had gathered, both on the beach and in the bars above it, patiently waiting for the promised spectacle. This was the moment. The future of the Rab Kite Festival balanced on a very thin line.
And that line had just gone completely slack.
Kites are daughters of the wind, and kite flyers spend years learning to cope with all their little moods and tantrums. Improvisation is one of the essential survival skills of any serious kiter.
Žuža immediately produced a bundle of spinners and handed them to the children. Within seconds they were charging up and down the sandy beach with heavy spinning wheels whirling behind them, slowing them down, pulling them sideways, and generally making running look much more difficult than it ought to be.
It was utterly hilarious. The children loved it. The parents laughed even harder.
But…
The main attraction was supposed to be the glowing kites.
Now what?
As the old kite adage goes, a true kiter never runs.
Except during an emergency.
This was an emergency.
We stretched out about fifty metres of line, attached the trilobite, found a willing volunteer, and yelled:
“RUUUUUUUUN!”
The trilobite rose reluctantly, as though questioning every life choice that had led it to this particular beach.
The LEDs came alive.
Suddenly a giant glowing prehistoric creature floated above Livaćina.
The crowd erupted.
“WOOOOOOO!”
“Again!”
The applause echoed across the bay. The trilobite landed.
“Again!”
“RUUUUUUN!”
Up it went again. This time even higher.
“Again!”
The cheers became louder. Children jumped. Phones appeared everywhere. The bars emptied onto the beach.
“Again!”
After about ten full-length sprints our heroic volunteer reached the entirely reasonable conclusion that oxygen was, in fact, quite important.
He stopped. So did the trilobite.
The show was over.
Sometimes you don’t need perfect wind. Sometimes a few determined lunatics running through the sand are enough.
The next morning, naturally, the wind was absolutely perfect.
Of course it was. By then we had to pack.
We managed one quick flying session and squeezed in a kite aerial photography flight because no self-respecting KAP team would leave such conditions unused.
This is how kites see Rab …
Then we packed everything into the cars, and reluctantly drove towards the ferry.
We sailed straight into a proper Adriatic storm.
Was this demonstration kite festival a success? Were we the midwives, and did we witness the birth of a proper Rab International Kite Festival?
To be completely honest, for us old džombas, it could have been better. On average, the wind was perfect. But averages are a bitch.
Could we have lifted more kites? Should we have organised another workshop? Could we have pushed harder, prepared better, run more, improvised more?
No. We did our best, we did everything that we could. The rest was in the hands of Gods of Wind, and they were a bit moody.
But kite flyers are like that. We can spend weeks analyzing a single gust of wind, a single failed launch, or a single kite that did not quite behave as expected. We can obsess over angles, lines, anchors, and tiny details while completely forgetting the most important thing.
Kids were happy. People were happy.
And the crowds on Rab were absolutely blown away.
The social media channels and local media were buzzing with photographs and videos of giant flying creatures above the beaches of the island. Children carried the kites they had made themselves everywhere they went, proudly searching for the next patch of wind that would lift their creations into the sky. Parents were smiling, tourists were amazed, and everyone kept talking about how incredible the demonstration festival had been and how unfair it was that it ended so quickly.
The question we heard again and again was the most flattering one:
“Will you do this again? When?”
Hopefully, we will.
The seeds of a real festival were planted during those three unforgettable days. Now they are in the hands of Darko and his team. They understand the island. They understand tourism. And, most importantly, they understand the magic of filling a blue Adriatic sky with enormous colourful creatures.
So we believe there is only one logical thing to do.
Book a week next summer.
We are going back to Rab.
A huge thank you goes to Darko Marić and the entire team of Avanterra Park, to the wonderfully cheerful staff of both Lavanda and Salvija apartments, to the happy people of Santa Marija beach bar, who made us feel at home and whom we were genuinely sorry to leave so soon, to all the children who built and flew their very own kites, and to all the good people of Lopar who stopped, watched, cheered, laughed, took photographs, asked questions, and supported our little flying invasion with such enthusiasm.
You were the reason this crazy idea worked.
A kite festival is not made only of kites. It is made of people. Of beauty. Of laughter. Of children shouting that they are pilots. Of strangers looking up at the sky together. Of a whole beach forgetting, for a little while, everything else.
Thank you all for being part of it.
And see you again soon!
I promise that I’ll learn some words in Croatian. Please please invite me 🙂
Perfect story and wonderful festival.
Congratulation!
Thanks – and of course, István! 😉