‘It’s like painting’: North Myrtle Beach kite man decorates sky with colorful aerial show
Dale Dove quickly unrolls the item he pulled out of a plastic tote, stretching its long, black tentacles across the sand.
The more he unrolls, the more it becomes clear that this is some sort of sea monster.
And it is a monster.
A 50-foot octopus to be exact that will soon be launched into the sky at 53rd Avenue in North Myrtle Beach.
It’s one of Dove’s more than 80 kites that he flies once or twice a month on the beach when he comes to visit his mother. He will return Friday afternoon for another show.
As the wind begins to lift the kite on the evening of July 20, Dove maneuvers it lower, allowing the tentacles to dance and flutter close to the sand. Nearby children giggle and run under and through them, as other beachgoers watch the show from their beach chairs.
A number of people come up where Dove has anchored several of his kites, asking what is going on. Dove said he is often asked if he is selling the kites. The answer, of course, is no.
He’s just a guy who has had an obsession with kite flying since he was young and wants to share his passion with others.
“I’m not selling them, I’m just flying them,” Dove said.
‘It’s like being an artist’
Dove has been coming to the area his entire life, he said. He hauls his kites in a wagon from his mother’s nearby home, which his parents bought in 2003. His father passed away in 2008.
The giant octopus is not his only large kite. He also has a Chinese dragon that is 50-feet long and 10-feet tall. Its head is as a big as a car. He likens it to a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade float.
As Dove, who is a semi-retired adoption lawyer, got more into the hobby, he began to learn about the different types of winds, the use of the kites’ tails and how to maneuver the kites. The 66-year-old Rock Hill, South Carolina, man makes sure to check the wind and tide levels before he heads to the beach. He even had special kites made, including a colorful kite arch from China that he sets up whenever he comes to fly his kites.
“It’s fun for me, I like flying kites,” Dove said. “... It’s like painting. It’s like being an artist. What do I feel like putting up today.”
Kite festival set for this fall
Dove is not the only kite flyer in North Myrtle Beach.
The North Myrtle Beach Kite Club has about 160 members and hosts fly days on the first Saturday and third Sunday of the month. They gather at the Point, a small section of beach located at the northernmost tip of the Cherry Grove area.
The next fly day will be Aug. 20.
Some members are also out on the beach most weekends flying kites, according to club president Eric Blevins.
Blevins works at Klig’s Kites in North Myrtle Beach. The locally-owned business, which also has a store at Broadway at the Beach, offers a large selection of kites.
The store conducts a kite festival in October near the former pavilion site in downtown Myrtle Beach. It’s the sixth year for the event that will happen Oct. 21 and 22, Blevins said.
The 37-year-old Longs man has been flying kites since he was young. He got started when “my mom bought me a big ol’ dragon kite when I was a kid,” he said.
Blevins said the store gets a number of people who come in looking for kites they can fly at the beach. The kiting industry saw a spike after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, when more people turned to hobbies they once had as kids, Blevins said.
“It’s been a lot more than you think,” Blevins said about the number of people buying kites.
But he understands the interest. Working at Klig’s Kites only fuels his kite obsession, Blevins said.
“It got bigger and out of hand,” Blevins said. “That’s how kite flying is.”
