Wick Harbourfest

Last weekend was Wick Harbourfest.  It was billed as part of the diamond jubilee, but it was held a couple of weeks later.  We are a sponsor of the Harbourfest, and there had been a call for a volunteer to represent us at the event.  I waited 10 days, and I checked to see if anyone had volunteered - nope, so I did -- major sigh.

I didn't really know what to expect, but was told where to be, that I would need to be on stage and I was asked to judge the best dressed boat - sounded fun. 

I was late, primarily because I couldn't figure out what smart casual meant, but I did make it just in time to be introduced to the court and my fellow sponsor and line up to our 'piping' to the stage.

The queen and her court had been crowned in the morning, and they were 3 lovely girls that were mature, poised and outgoing.  The queen had this really unfortunate cape that she had to wear over her gorgeous white dress.  

The queen and her court leave the stage

She also got up and made a speech and officially opened the Harbourfest by ringing the harbor bell. She grabbed that rope and gave it a tug nearly pulling the whole thing over, but she was not deterred and kept at it until someone rushed over to hold it in place so she could get a good few rings.  At her age, I would have died, but she was so cool.

She was pretty amazing - in spite of her cape.  The whole thing had this Scottish style Kass Kounty King Korn Karnival vibe, which resulted in me having a fairly goofy look on my face all morning.

After the speeches and a piping off of the stage, we had a quick sandwich lunch and were given the brief on how we were to do the judging.  We were to be given a clipboard with all of the boats, and we were to talk to the people on the boats to verify whether they were local or visitors as there would be a winner in each category.  After lunch, my fellow sponsor said, let's go, but I was like wait what about the clipboard...

Off we went without the clipboard.  My fellow sponsor quickly realized that I don't know anything about boats - like nothing.  He was very nice and patient, but I think he got a bit tired of me going that one is nice, I like that one, how can you tell they are local again - I mean, we had no clipboard.

Wick Harbour - festive!

He clearly wanted to do one round and be done with it, but since we had deviated from the prescribed process, we had no information on the boats - all the ones I liked seemed to be locals.  So up and down the floating docks we went.  


Well, I had just eaten sausage rolls - the sandwiches were too mysterious for me and the bobbing of the dock was nauseating and our quick once round turned into a second and a third and a fourth.   I was thinking about puking when we started to narrow in.

We agreed to choose the Wee Chance as the local winner.  Apparently, his dad won last year and this 5 year old really goes out in the Scrabster Harbour in the boat - shudder the thought.  He is expecting a sibling and the boat was a pre-sibling gift - all of this information was picked up while walking around from various people we ran into.

Local Winner, The Wee Chance!

Round 4, we noticed that there was this guy sitting in his boat working on his paraffin lamp.  He sails around by himself and had recently returned from Orkney.  Like most people that spend a lot of time by themselves, he had a lot to say - about everything.  His boat was decorated, but he was the prize.  

Visitor Winner, Shy Talk! - Seriously, how cute is he - so, old man of the sea

Another thing ticked off my bucket list.