Beach Crowds Cap Weekend With a Bang : Holiday: Throngs flock to the Sawdust Festival, and to the Huntington Beach Jamboree and Bodyboard Contest.

Blond, blue-eyed Jay Reale peeked from beneath his sun glasses at the tanned bodies lying on the beach, then motioned toward the surf where white-tipped waves crashed over the boom of an FM rock station blaring from a loudspeaker.

“This is what people from the Midwest want to come to California for,” said Reale, his voice straining against both the rock station and a stiff ocean breeze blowing under overcast skies.

As he was spoke, the thick shards of clouds began to break up, allowing the sun to shine on spectators who gathered Saturday for the sixth annual Huntington Beach Jamboree and Bodyboard Contest.

The competition was one of many events Orange County residents thronged to as Independence Day weekend shifted into high gear.

Whether drawn by the allure of boogie boards, the smell of sawdust at the 25th annual Sawdust Festival in Laguna Beach or the notion of a game of touch football in a supermarket parking lot, all seemed to think it embodied the California good life.

“This is a great day for just hanging out, and this is truly a great place to do it,” said 21-year-old Newport Beach resident Ginger Timmons, who stopped off at a Balboa Peninsula supermarket and decided to catch a few minutes of a lively touch football game in the parking lot.

“I’ve had the whole week off and I don’t want to go back to work on Monday. I’d like to stretch this weekend out as long as possible,” she added.

Back in Huntington Beach, novice surfer Paul Gutierrez, 18, came from Norwalk with his two cousins to check out the boogie board competition. He liked what he saw.

“I’ve tried it a couple of times and it’s a lot of fun, plus you’re less likely to get your head banged up than if you were on a (surf) board,” Gutierrez said. He arrived with a new yellow and black bodyboard, but wasn’t quite prepared to pay the $10 fee and actually enter the competition, which continues today.

For Jay Reale, 27, a professional bodyboard surfer, there is no other life.

“It’s the embodiment of the American Dream,” said Reale, who earned a teaching degree but decided to chuck the indoor job for the waves. “I get paid to go to the beach and travel around the world. It’s a great lifestyle, as much fun as it looks.”

In Laguna Beach, trams threaded through a near-logjam of cars on Laguna Canyon Road to transport visitors from free parking lots to opening day festivities at two of the city’s summer arts and craft shows, the Sawdust Festival and Art-A-Fair.

At the Sawdust Festival, people meandered from booth to booth, browsing among the ceramic dishes, hand-hewn jewelry and paintings, while quizzing the artists about how the items were made.

Children stopped at a stand to have their faces painted with glittery designs, and crowds gathered to watch a glass-blowing demonstration. Comic jugglers drew as much applause when they dropped the pins they threw as when they made a flawless catch. When hunger struck, the visitors munched on foods ranging from turkey hot dogs to fish tacos to ice cream.

“I don’t know of anything like this back on the East Coast,” said Bill Greschel of Reston, Va. He and his wife, Emmy, were visiting a friend in Buena Park over the Fourth of July holiday.

The couple said they were searching to buy something that was either small enough to wear or large enough to justify shipping home.

Tina Thornton and her sister, Teresa, had driven from their home in Hollywood to the festival to celebrate Teresa’s 24th birthday. It was a great change of pace, Teresa said. “The air here is clean and I love the setting in the canyon. Also, people-watching here is kind of fascinating.”

Cymone Conley had come with her husband, Kevin, from Rancho Bernardo in San Diego County to search for a pair of earrings that didn’t look like anything sold in department stores. She found them--a $50 dangling creation of brass and green glass. She seized the opportunity to learn how the distinctive colorings in the brass had been made with chemicals by the craftsman, Timothy Hawkins, who was also the shopkeeper. “It is nice talking to the artist,” she said.

Jonathan and Amy Rubin of El Toro said their outing to the festival was a treat for their 6-year-old daughter, Emily. Asked what she liked most, Emily pointed to a large sparkling ruby ring. “Well, she certainly has good taste,” said her mother, gently moving her on to another exhibit.