CANNON BEACH For artist Micah Cerelli, the puffins on the Cannon Beach Sandcastle poster she drew are just visitors, in town for the festivities.

Theyre not meant to resemble the tufted puffins on Haystack Rock.

Those puffins have the ribbon of feathers curling from their foreheads to behind their ears, and they have orange beaks, but their bellies are black, not white like the poster puffins.

Horned puffins, which dont usually fly to Haystack Rock, have white bellies, but theyre missing the ear feathers.

The puffins on Cerellis poster one is building a sandcastle, and another is ready to plant a flag on the castle are hybrids.

Maybe Cerelli is right: Theyre in Cannon Beach to celebrate the Sandcastle event that is stretching this year from one day to three.

Sandcastle begins Friday afternoon with a preliminary community build and ends on Sunday with a fun run.

In between is the annual Sandcastle Day, with teams sculpting sand in all sorts of shapes for the honor of winning medallions and bragging rights. All ages can participate.

We will have six masters teams this year; thats a record! said Debbie Nelson, Sandcastle Day coordinator.

The experienced masters teams, who come from throughout the United States, draw crowds from 7 a.m., when they load their plywood forms onto the sand and carry buckets of water from the ocean to their spaces, to noon, when their intricate, often humorous sand sculptures are completed.

This year, the winning masters team will collect $1,200; monetary prizes also will go to the runners-up, Nelson said.

Sponsored by the Cannon Beach Chamber of Commerce, this is the 48th annual Sandcastle Day, and, according to Nelson, it is the oldest sandcastle contest west of the Mississippi River.

The event began just a few months after a tsunami, caused by an earthquake in Alaska, hit Cannon Beach in 1964. It was a community gathering designed to cheer up residents and generate publicity for the town. Media photos of a washed-out bridge over Ecola Creek and other damage on the coast were keeping tourists away.

The event grew so successful that, by the mid-1980s, it attracted 30,000 people and slowed traffic in the middle of Cannon Beach for hours on Sandcastle Day.

Although the crowds are less about 10,000 now, Nelson estimates they still have as much fun. And this year, they may have three times as much fun with three days of activities.

At 2 p.m. Friday, a community build of a sandcastle is planned at the beach at Tolovana Wayside. Anyone can come bring a shovel, Nelson said.

Those who want to compete in Saturdays event can pick up packets and registration forms at the Cannon Beach Chamber of Commerce building, 207 N. Spruce St.

A Shovel n Buckets dinner begins at 6 p.m. at Tolovana Inn. For $5 each, diners can purchase spaghetti, salad or clam chowder. Free ice cream comes with the meal.

Former Trail Blazer Jerome Kersey plans to attend the dinner, as well as the Sandcastle Day contest.

On Saturday, Nelson and her crew will arrive at the beach at 5:30 a.m. to mark off 50 or more plots, where the teams will work their magic. Information, medical and concession tents including tents for the Cannon Beach Childrens Center and Fire Mountain School also will go up. The crew has until 7 a.m. to complete its project in time for the masters teams to arrive.

By 8 a.m., the rest of the teams are there, shivering in the morning mist, some still trying to figure out what theyre going to carve. More experienced teams have brought their tools, spray bottles, straws, buckets and drawings.

From 8 a.m. until noon Saturday, the teams will be sculpting sand, spraying water on it to keep it moist, blowing through straws to whisk away bits of sand and, for the most part, ignoring the growing crowds clicking photos at top speed.

Throughout the morning, local judges will wander through those crowds to peek at the sculptures and make notes. Winners will be announced at noon.

Other activities Saturday morning include a pancake feed at the American Legion building from 8 to 10 a.m. and a U.S. Coast Guard flyover before noon.

While in other years Sandcastle Day would be over after the winners are announced, this year, several other events are planned.

We wanted to make it a three-day event rather than one day to benefit the businesses, Nelson said. Were the Chamber of Commerce, so its all about business. But were keeping it aesthetically pleasant for the people living here.

Gallery owners plan to showcase special pieces of artwork during a gallery walk in the downtown and midtown areas from 3 to 6 p.m. Saturday. A bonfire on the beach at Surfsand Resort, 146 W. Gower St. is scheduled at 7 p.m.

At 7:30 p.m., the BeckerHeads, a family friendly band from Oregon City that plays tunes ranging from country rock to surf with some blues mixed in, will perform at the Coaster Theatre. The cost is $5 for kids and $10 for adults.

Although the waves may have washed all the sandcastles away by Sunday morning, the weekend isnt over. A fun run begins with registration (cost is $10) at the Cannon Beach Chamber of Commerce building at 8 a.m. The 5,000-meter run on the beach at Second Street starts at 9 a.m. Winners will take home medallions with designs made by Micah Cerelli, who created this years poster.

Nelson asked Cerelli, who grew up in Arch Cape, to submit a poster design to the Sandcastle Day committee. Her illustration reflected the lightheartedness that the Sandcastle event evokes, Nelson said.

It took two weeks to come up with the design, said Cerelli, 24, whose interest in art erupted when she attended Fire Mountain School as a child. I had a sketchbook with me, and I went outside brainstorming things that inspired me in Cannon Beach.

Because I illustrate childrens books, Im used to seeing playing animals, Cerelli said.

She wanted to infuse a light-spirited, fun, summer feeling into the design.

Cerelli graduated from Seaside High School and earned a bachelors degree in graphic design from the University of Oregon.

Although she lives in Newport Beach, Calif., where she is a freelance graphic designer and gives surfing lessons, Cerelli hasnt forgotten her sandcastle experiences in Cannon Beach.

One year, we built a pretty standard castle with a dragon going up the side of it, she said. Another year we built a soccer field covered with dune grass and had a soccer ball.

The poster is the first public artwork she has done, and it is selling swiftly at the chamber building. Cerelli said she heard people talking about the poster when she was there recently to sign some of them.

Ive been getting a great reaction, Cerelli said. No one seems to have an issue with the puffins.