Ocracoke Island will celebrate colonial life in the 1700s with a living history encampment and the Battle of Ocracoke during Blackbeard’s Pirate Jamboree Friday, Nov. 1, and Saturday, Nov. 2, on the Berkley Manor grounds.
The festival will focus on history, colonial life and family fun.
Events will kick off Friday evening at 7:30 in the Berkley Barn with a comedy, adult-oriented game show, “The Dating Game with Blackbeard,” in which comely ladies will vie for the chance to date Blackbeard.
Saturday (Nov. 2) will feature a colonial encampment on the grounds of the Berkley Manor highlighting daily life, navigation, cooking and medicine, games for kids and artisan vendor booths.
Back by popular demand, a pirate parade will kick off the Saturday events at 10 a.m. starting at Ride the Wind Surf Shop, walk through the downtown and end at the encampment.
Among the living history re-enactors are The Cannon Crew out of Beaufort. Led by Capt. Carl Cannon, the 17-member group will set up a colonial-era encampment with shipboard medicine, navigation, games, weaving and cooking.
Cannon’s period sloop, “The Adventure,” and Horatio Sinbad’s brigantine, “Meka II,” will circle the harbor with cannons ablaze at 11 a.m.
Also pitching their camps will be members of Leviathan Nautical Living History, a group dedicated to the accurate portrayal of a ship’s company in the age of sail, spanning the years 1680 to 1865. They also will demonstrate colonial era firearms.
The Sword Circle, which hails from Raleigh, will demonstrate sword-fighting and will have a booth with candle making in which festival goers can try their skill. They also will have axe throwing and will set up an area for kids to learn sword fighting.
The Shadow Players comedy stage combat troop will return this year and the Motley Tones roving minstrels will sing sea chanteys and tavern songs throughout the day.
Historian Kevin Duffus and Sinbad will talk about “Blackbeard: Myths & Legends” Saturday afternoon.
Also showing in the afternoon will be a documentary “BoatBbuilding in Your Own Backyard,” about how Sinbad built his brigantine.
Duffus also will do an interview on WOVV 90.1 FM Friday at 11:30 a.m. and will sign his books, including “The Last Days of Black Beard the Pirate,” at Books to be Red at 1 p.m.
The living history crews will also reenact on shore along the NPS docks the sword fight in which Blackbeard met his demise at the hand of Royal Navy Lt. Robert Maynard.
The event will conclude with a memorial service honoring the fallen sailors for both Blackbeard and Lt. Robert Maynard.
A detailed schedule will be released later and will be included in the October issue of the Observer.
Stay tuned on Blackbeard’s Pirate Jamboree Facebook page, the OCBA website http://www.ocracokeisland.net and Facebook page.
