Only a few people braved the freezing temperatures to attend the Onset Bay Center’s sand sculpture festival. Those who did found the beach a blank canvas for their creativity. 

Ian Smith crafted a family of dolphins swimming through the sand. 

“It’s a great time,” Smith said. He added he didn’t know what he was going to make, so the night before the festival he looked up a three-minute Youtube tutorial. 

The McCarthy family said they came down to the beach to see the sculptures at the festival. When they found the beach mostly barren, they jumped in, working together to carve a crab out of the sand. 

The family comes down to the beach once a week in the summer, they said. 

Angie Weldon, manager of the Onset Bay Center, said the first annual festival held the previous year drew in about a dozen participants, but she thought the weather this year scared people away. 

It was a “great time for those of us who braved the weather,” she said.