Sandy Celebration : SeaFest: Newport’s annual homage to beach and ocean draws thousands of fun seekers. A sandcastle contest tops the events, which will continue next weekend.

Baris Volkan, 17, was at Corona del Mar State Beach on Sunday, 30 days and half a world away from his native Turkey, when at noon there was a thunderous boom from a cannon--the signal to begin digging.

Full of youth’s fury, he and a team of foreign exchange students attacked the sand with hands and shovels as if treasure lay deep within the dunes.

Slowly, Volkan and students from Chile, Finland, Spain and New Zealand helped shape wet sand into the likeness of a radio-cassette player as part of the 31st annual Sandcastle Contest.

“A radio is definitely part of the California beach scene,” explained Marcus Berry, a Corona del Mar High student who captains his campus’s foreign exchange program.

The sandcastle competition is but one event in the two-weekend-long Newport SeaFest that draws thousands to the coast for a clam chowder cook-off, a boat show, a water polo match and a library open house, among other things.

The most popular event Sunday was the sandcastle contest.

With the familiar refrain “wasting away in Margaritaville” blaring from a public address system nearby, Volkan paused in his digging frenzy to look seaward. “This is better than I expected. . . . I like the beach, the girls, the cars--everything. In Turkey you don’t have the waves.”

Emma Fortea, 17, of Barcelona, Spain, and Jean Yang, 17, another Corona del Mar High School student, stomped on the sand as other team members formed a bucket brigade and used old laundry detergent and paint pails to haul water from the surf.

“This is great,” said Yang. “You get to meet the new (students) and play in the sand.”

A few yards away, a team from a firm called the 30th Street Architects had a definite plan. They sculpted several mounds at once.

“We’ve been doing this for 11, 12, maybe 15 years,” said architect John Montgomery. The team worked as if from blueprints, and although its members were paying strict attention to detail, Montgomery denied that the group was taking the contest too seriously. As John Loomis, another architect, humorously splashed a bucket of water on one of four small children who were helping out, Montgomery said, “See what I mean?”

Farther away, a rival group from Langdon Wilson Architects was using a huge, upside-down tree planter box as a building form. With tools, Paul Thoretz pried the four walls of the box off the wet sand, and the team quickly shaped the top of a dormant Hawaiian volcano.

“We’re going to build huts and villages at the bottom,” Thoretz said as his daughter Ashley, 9, re-moistened the sand with a spray bottle. “And we’ll have wreckage from Hurricane Iniki.”

Across town in Lido Plaza, 15 contestants vied in the annual clam chowder cook-off.

Jerry Damachino of Placentia looked at a container of chowder his wife Jane was sampling and said, “This is good. The weather’s great, and she loves clam chowder.”

Six judges made their way around to all the chowder booths, trying to decide who would win the award in the categories for best restaurant effort and best individual effort. Meanwhile, the public marked ballots to determine the recipient of the People’s Choice honor.

Mat Pace of Irvine was ladling chowder at the booth sponsored by Ruby’s Jaguar Diner. “The secret to good clam chowder is the consistency,” said Pace. “That, and the spiciness.”

But Pace disavowed any knowledge of the secret recipe. “I’m just not sure what it is,” he said. “I just know it’s good--try some.”

The Cannery won first place in the restaurant category; Fine Dining, a catering firm, took top honors in the individual competition, with the Back Bay Cafe (the Dunes) winning the People’s Choice award.

The events continue next weekend with more of the UC Irvine water polo tournament, the Taste of Newport food samplings from area restaurants, boat and yacht sailing contests, a kite festival, 5-K and 10-K walks and runs, a health expo and other activities. The festival is overseen by the Newport Harbor Chamber of Commerce and has corporate sponsors.