NEWPORT BEACH : Scarecrows Enliven Balboa Island Alley

People visiting Balboa Island typically stroll beside the waters of the Grand Canal or window-shop down Marine Avenue.

But now, many detour to the alley between the two walkways, where scarecrows outside of houses and shops compete this week in the first annual Balboa Island Alley Scarecrow Contest.

There, standing at attention or hanging from decks, are a ghost bedecked in pink-and-white netting holding Phantom of the Opera front-row tickets, Man of La Mancha with a galvanized steel hat, Frankenstein with carved wooden hands and feet, and about 10 other displays.

“It started out as a joke,” said Stephanie Stokes, a free-lance graphic designer who started the unofficial contest by making and distributing posters from what she called the Alley Beautification Committee.

“There’s really not much going on this time of year, and I wanted to have some fun. I put mine out and then everyone thought they were supposed to be putting up scarecrows.”’

Now, groups and busloads of people come to see and photograph what she calls the “Alley Bike & Walk Tour.”

Despite the frivolity, there have been problems.

Vandals decapitated a scarecrow ice skater with an ice bucket head and beheaded another depicting a woman with wood shingle curls. A pirate was beaten up, and many others were damaged, Stokes said.

“But people fixed them or replaced them,” she said. “They didn’t give up.”

Stokes said next year’s contest will be much bigger.

The scarecrows will be judged Friday and remain on display until the day after Thanksgiving.