ill a r i n e advice 



A Flurry off Festivities 



year-round events and festivals. 



Some — like the Wanchese 

 Seafood Festival — have an underly- 

 ing cause. Others simply aim to 

 lengthen the tourist season and 

 spotlight the community. 



Either way, business gets a jump- 



Commercial fishermen in Dare 

 County decided 10 years ago the best 

 way to sell folks on jettying the 

 Oregon Inlet was to invite them over 

 for food and fellowship. 



From this early strategy, the 

 Wanchese Seafood Festival was born. 



These days, the June event 

 draws crowds numbering in the 

 thousands to the area's commercial 

 fishing center in an annual rite of 

 summer. 



The jetty has yet to be built, but 

 the Wanchese festival has helped 

 fishermen explain their vocation 

 and the obstacles to making a 

 living, says Rich Novak, a Sea 

 Grant marine agent and recreation 

 specialist. 



It's also been a boon to the 

 Wanchese economy, attracting 

 visitors and their wallets to 

 Roanoke Island with arts and 

 crafts, music, boat tours of the 

 Oregon Inlet and fresh seafood. 



"These events are good for the 

 tourism business," says Novak, an 

 early organizer of the festival. "It' s Rich Novak 

 gotten to the point now, renters want to start from the attractions, 

 know when the festival is held so they 

 can book a cottage." 



Other coastal events bearing 

 Novak's fingerprints had similar 

 beginnings. Engelhard has a May 

 seafood festival and Ocracoke has a 

 surf fishing tournament held in late 

 April and early May. Dare County has 

 a September triathlon that draws 

 athletes from points all along the 

 Eastern Seaboard. And Belhaven is 

 hatching plans for a September crab 

 festival. 



Small coastal communities use 

 these festivals as drawing cards to 

 attract people who otherwise might not 

 have visited. On the Outer Banks 

 alone, a single vacation guide lists 61 



Novak helps coastal communities 

 get their event off the ground, putting 

 the organizational foundation into 

 place and spawning ideas for activities. 



"There's a whole lot more work 

 than people realize," he says. 



From there, local organizers take 

 over. 



The Wanchese Seafood Festival 

 started with a blessing of the fleet, a 

 seafood meal and displays of trawling 

 rigs. Organizers wanted folks to 

 understand the plight of the commer- 

 cial fisherman. 



But especially, they wanted support 

 for their controversial campaign to 

 jetty the Oregon Inlet so it would be 

 passable year-round. With the inlet 



closed to commercial fishing boats, 

 they must travel south to Hatteras Inlet 

 or north to Virginia to trawl offshore. 



In Engelhard, settled on the banks 

 of the Pamlico Sound, the goals and 

 expectations were less political. 

 Organizers of the annual seafood 

 festival wanted to unite the commu- 

 nity in an event that would spotlight 

 their local seafood trade. 



"It's just a good time to be had," 

 Novak says. "People come from all 

 over the area. About 75 percent of 

 Hyde County appears sometime in 

 the day." 



Novak has handed over the 

 festival blueprint and made his 

 customary shift from organizer to 

 participant. 



At last year's event, he judged a 

 seafood cook-off and a beauty 

 contest and served up 10 pounds of 

 squid and 20 pounds of shark, 

 breaded and fried in cubes. The 

 samples of underutilized species — 

 ■ ; once a culinary curiosity — have 

 ' become a hit with festival-goers. 



And he's taken his planning 

 expertise elsewhere. 



In Belhaven — a town off the 

 Pungo River — Novak is guiding 

 plans to throw a Sept. 19 crab festival 

 with seafood, tours of seafood process- 

 ing houses, local arts and crafts, and a 

 dance. 



"We want to call attention to the 

 town and hopefully to bring some 

 people in to see it," says Susan Russ, a 

 festival organizer. 



"We want people to realize that 

 we're here. If you're going to the 

 Outer Banks from Greenville or 

 Washington, you can bypass 

 Belhaven. We want people to come 

 into town and see what we have to 

 offer." 



Jeannie Faris 



20 JULY/AUGUST 1992 



