May 26, 2008

Okay, the Gullah Festival. It turns out the Gullah Festival is a celebration of the Gullah lifestyle. Gullah can best be described as a religion, a language and a culture with some bizarre clothing thrown in.

It started with the former slaves in the low country in Georgia and South Carolina. The language is an English based Creole and borrows heavily from different African dialects. There even seems to be a heavy Bahamanian influence. There was live music for 2 full days played by a parade of talented performers. There were several young musicians on stage at various times so it seems that this heritage will continue to be embraced for at least another generation.


There was also a host of craft stands selling sweet grass baskets and African based art. Food, don’t get me started on the food. We walked up and down the midway trying to decide between barbeque, catfish or kabobs. I think Gullah might actually be French for obesity.

Also on Sunday there was a meeting of a Corvette owners group. They had probably 25 newer Corvettes in the marina parking lot. Seemed kinda pointless to me, I mean I can understand a group of car enthusiasts displaying older classic cars that they’ve worked hard to bring back to life. It doesn’t seem fair to be able to drive a new Vette off the lot and you’re automatically part of the fraternity, I guess that explained all the Spiderman tights.

As luck would have it though as we waited to cross the street in front of the marina we were treated to a parade of classic cars from a local Beaufort car club.

As usual, anchoring once again provided some entertainment. There was a Canadian boat that had a bit of a tendency to sail at anchor. Every other boat in the anchorage is lying peacefully to the tidal flow and the little bit of breeze. Not the Canuck boat though, his boat seems to have someplace to be. The boat was swinging from extreme to extreme as far as its rode would allow, we even watched in amazement as it did a complete 360 degree turn around its own anchor. Of course, they weren't on the boat, they just dropped the hook and dinghied ashore leaving their neighbors to fend for themselves. (<-good pun)

Last night we had another good bit of entertainment. This past weekend was Memorial Day weekend so theres been quite a bit of boat traffic. About a half mile away from our boat is a small area of beachiness. Every day about fifty or so small boats have been congregating in the area either rafting up or nosing their boats up onto the shore. Its kind of like party central, but mellow, except for the random asshole or two that have a little too much firewater before they head for home.

Last night the cops decided to make a statement. At the end of the afternoon 4 police boats placed themselves up and downstream from the beach. When individual boats decided to head for home most of them were stopped and boarded. They were checking for life jackets, underage drinking, drunk driving and other general stupid people tricks. We saw several citations handed out and even a few arrests. I couldn’t help wondering though; why didn’t they run this type of operation on Saturday night instead of waiting until Monday? If boater safety is really the goal here why not run the raid sooner and set the tempo for the entire weekend.