What should I anchor to?
One of the most ingenious proposals for solving the kite anchor problem comes from Mark DeRoussier. He suggests bringing a crate of beer to tie your line to. You must, of course bring sufficient beer that there is still enough weight to restrain your kite when you have drunk a few bottles, but this problem is limited, as the empty bottles provide a solution to the problem that you have drunk a lot of beer an there are no toilets near the flying field. In this way, the ballast can be maintained throuout the day.
A good choice of anchor is the tow-hook on a car. This is both capable of anchoring a large kite and easy to move round the field. Note, however that while a car can handle large kites, there *is* a limit, after which the car will start being dragged down the field until it hits something solid. This can be pretty difficult to explain to insurance companies.
A simple peg driven into the ground is cheap and effective. A simple tent-peg is sufficient for smaller kites, while larger pieces of iron sill secure more sky-art. When using pegs to secure the sort of toys that Bob Anderson plays with, one peg is not sufficient - drive in another couple of pegs behind and tie them to the first peg, to hold it firm. Another technique is to use a piece of angle-iron, with holes drilled down each side (rather like a piece of Dexion shelving, but much heavier), layed flat on the ground and with a peg driven through each hole.
On many flying fields, you will find that the landlord had provided a series of stakes roght round the perimiter, which are handy to use, but beware of the barbed wire which they tend to stretch between them - if the wind is not exactly perpendicular to the fence, your kite will need little encouragement to use this to rip it'sself to pieces. These fences may look sturdy enough to use for large kites, but beware what happened to a certain New Zealand flier: The kite ripped out the post, which hung in the air, suspended by the fence-wire. The kite continued to pull, ripping out the next post, then the next and so on, untill the flier was left with a lot of explaining to do...
By far the best solution on the beach is to use a sandbag. Either a postbag, or for big stuff, one of the large bags used for transporting sand and gravel. These are convenient to bring to the beach, contain no sharp objects and will when full restrain very large kites.
It is worth considering carefuly how you want the system to fail if it is overloaded. There are several places to choose from: