Looking inactive and sleepy for now, Island Habour Bay will come alive this Easter weekend. It will be the sixth annual Festival Del Mar event, attracting hundreds of fun-loving locals and visitors to the fishing capital of Anguilla and causing traffic jams and delays in the area.
It will be, as someone aptly described the yearly scene, “a riot of colour and feasting” that many have been looking forward to since the turn of 2013. The event will feature traditional cooking (with an emphasis on seafood); culinary competitions, fishing tournaments, A and B class boat races, sunfish races swimming races and even the once childhood sport of crab-racing which many children and grown-ups continue to perpetuate with some excitement. String band music, a well-preserved entertainment art form, will also be a prominent feature at the festival.
The festival is a joint undertaking by the Island Harbour community in association with the Anguilla Tourist Board and the Ministry and Department of Youth and Culture. Apart from the entertainment and pleasurable pastime the event provides, it is essentially a tribute to the seafaring heritage of Anguilla and the men and women who have contributed greatly to the diverse cultural life of the island.
The actual activities for Festival Del Mar were put together by an organising committee selected largely from among the Island Harbour community – Anguilla’s leading fishing village – headed by Mr. Othlyn Vanterpool, who also happens to be the Elected Representative for that district.
Following that presentation, The Anguillian asked Mr. Vanterpool to comment on this year’s event. “The festival is coming on very good so far,” he replied. “We are in the home stretch now and we are getting the booths and everything else ready on the Island Harbour Beach. This year we will have a number of activities in the water like sunfish races, swimming races, the boat races, a deep-sea fishing competition. We will also have on the opening night the Veto Band and the Harrigan Brothers from Island Harbour. For the closing exercises we will have the Darwin Mussington and his DC Band, Singing Roxie, Nardica and Kyra Hughes.
“We will also be honouring a few of our fishermen. This year we want to make a special presentation to Mr. Kenneth Harrigan who has been a stalwart in the area and contributed quite a lot to Anguilla and to Island Harbour. We will have a packed programme and I am urging everyone to come out to enjoy themselves for the entire festival.
“We have been getting in contributions towards the event and things are going to be good. It takes in the region of over thirty thousand US dollars or closer to forty thousand. This year we have been able to work with some of the people who rent us supplies to be able to get some reductions as we might not have all the funds that are necessary. We are grateful to our suppliers for working with us.”
Mr. Vanterpool explained that portions of the money were being appropriated to such matters as security, cleaning of facilities, band music, prizes and so on.
Festival Del Mar will begin on Saturday, March 30 at 5.00 a.m. with the deep-sea fishing competition. The opening ceremony will be at 6.30 p.m. The festival will continue until late Sunday night.
