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, Oct. 31, and Saturday, Nov. 1, on the Berkley Manor grounds.
The festival focuses on historically accurate history, colonial life and family fun.
Events will kick off with the Brigands Bazaar vendor fair from 2 to 5 p.m. An old-fashioned scary movie, “The Mummy,” with Boris Karloff, will be shown in the Berkley Barn at 7:30 p.m. Doors open at 7.
Saturday (Nov. 1) 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.
Saturday’s will begin with a Pirate Parade 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.
They will be joined by Blackbeard’s Crew out of Hampton, Virginia.
Blackbeard in his “Adventure” will lay siege to Ocracoke at 11 a.m. with cannons blasting.
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 will talk about “Blackbeard’s Head” Saturday morning at 11:30.
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 noon.
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 as well as Captain Horatio Sinbad of Beaufort, who died earlier this year and who had participated in every jamboree since the event’s beginning.
A detailed schedule is below.
Stay tuned on Blackbeard’s Pirate Jamboree Facebook page, the OCBA website at http://www.ocracokeisland.net and Facebook page.
Great we come from Va Beach every year. Glad to see you are having the perade.
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