THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 30, 1996 TAG: 9606300056
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY LANE DEGREGORY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WANCHESE LENGTH: 85 lines
Even standing on his toes, Alex Scanlan-Berman couldn't see over the side of the 85-foot trawler docked at this Roanoke Island harbor Saturday.
But from Wanchese's wide commercial waterfront, the 6-year-old vacationer from Columbia, Md., could glimpse the deck of the ``Gallant Fox'' and follow his grandfather's finger pointing just above the hull.
``Those nets scoop seafood out of the ocean, pull it up from the bottom of the sea and drop it on the decks,'' Tom Scanlon explained.
``They catch real big fish,'' Alex explained to his 4-year-old brother, Adam. ``I think they're nice.''
Sister Annie, 8, said she preferred the ``moon bounce'' she and her siblings had just jumped inside. ``I think I'd get seasick on that boat,'' she said. ``It goes way out into the water.''
From touring fishing trawlers to seeing how seafood is caught, to cavorting in carnival-type attractions lining the harbor, to learning about the fate of fishermen who have drowned in the East Coast's most dangerous inlet, the 14th annual Wanchese Seafood Festival offered education, entertainment and an opportunity for more than 5,000 people to walk through a world primarily seen only by commercial watermen.
Held Saturday at the North Carolina Seafood Industrial Park, the daylong festival originally was intended to raise awareness about the need to stabilize Oregon Inlet. Fishermen wanted others in their community to realize how treacherous the Outer Banks' primary passageway to the Atlantic is becoming, as it shallows with shifting sands. They hoped to persuade the public - and politicians - to build two rock jetties inside the channel to keep the inlet from shoaling.
A table-sized poster displayed inside a white tent featured nine black-and-white photos of watermen who had died while trying to traverse the inlet. At least 15 other people and boats have succumbed to Oregon Inlet's shifting sands since 1970. A video playing on a small television atop one table told their story.
Congressman Walter B. Jones Jr., R-N.C, assured fishermen that he was still working to get funding to study the jetties' construction.
But most people walking along the Wanchese waterfront seemed more interested in the artists' booths, country music bands and, of course, the seafood lunch that's made the festival famous.
``At first, we were trying to promote the jetties project. But I think we've gotten away from that a bit,'' said Wanchese waterman Moon Tillett, who helped found the festival. ``I hate to say it, but I'm afraid it's the crafts people come for now. I still enjoy it. But not like I did back when it began.''
On both sides of a long walkway leading to four white tents, merchants displayed jewelry, pottery and fish-related souvenirs. Copper dolphins lept from a portable screen. Wooden whales dove across a sheet-covered backdrop. Fluorescent flounder flopped across just-painted T-shirts. And replicas of every sort of seafood dangled from silver earring wires.
Crab races dominated another area of activity. Fishermen cracked the big claws off the crustaceans, then handed the frantic catch to a coach. Children of all ages chose their crabs and lined them in wooden lanes. Cheering and tapping the white racetrack, they coerced the crabs to crawl to the finish line. Winning people received blue baseball caps.
Winning - and losing - crustaceans went into a pile.
It was a bad day to be a crab.
But it was a beautiful day to attend an outdoor festival.
``We cooked 2,200 pounds of crabs today. Looks like they might all get eaten,'' said Manteo resident Percy Etheridge, who was taking tickets at the all-you-can-eat crab station inside Top Fin Seafood, where a light breeze was cooling the 78-degree afternoon. ``More and more people come to this every year. I think it's the food that attracts 'em. And we've got great weather this year, which always helps.''
For $10, festivalgoers got to crack crabs, munch mounds of potato salad and eat a smorgasbord of Spanish mackerel, scallops, shrimp and clam strips. Hot dogs and sodas were sold separately. And there was even a table offering free samples of underutilized seafood species such as hammerhead shark and squid.
``That shark was good. As long as you spice it, almost anything can taste all right,'' said the Rev. David Daniels, who grew up in a commercial fishing family and blessed Wanchese's fleet Saturday over a red-white-and-blue wreath. ``I threw many of those hammerheads out of my nets over the years. It's nice to be able to eat some now.''
Others must have agreed. Although the alternative seafood booth was scheduled to stay open throughout the six-hour event, cooks gave away more than 70 pounds of shark in the first hour.
``A lot of people ate it, liked it, then wanted to know what it was,'' said William Small of the North Carolina Department of Agriculture. ``Even after they realized it was shark, some still came back for seconds. I think they enjoyed trying something new.'' by CNB