The Morro Bay Harbor Festival will coincide with a special maritime event — the historic first visit of a new tall ship — and cap the traditional local tourist season with a “BANG!”
Set for 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 1 in the heart of the Embarcadero — from Harbor to Marina streets — this 35th Annual Harbor Festival promises to be an epic event highlighted by the visiting, San Salvador, a replica Spanish Galleon that Spaniard Juan Cabrillo sailed up the California Coast on a voyage of exploration in 1542 open for dockside tours at the South T-pier. San Salvador was built by the San Diego Maritime Museum.
This is her maiden voyage and the Central Coast Maritime Museum Association is kicking off a major fundraising campaign to build a small museum to go with the vessels on display on the waterfront.
San Salvador will be in town from Sept. 29-Oct. 10 the longest stay in any port during this, her maiden voyage.
Dockside tours run from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily. Tickets and details are available at: www.morrobaymaritime.org. They’ll sell tickets at the ship too and Festival goers can ride the Morro Bay Trolley to the T-pier.
The roadway will be blocked off and vendors set up in the street, with the main event and stage in the parking lot across from Rose’s Landing.
Admission is free and there’ll be lots of libations and dancing to headliners, Garratt Wilkins and the Parrotheads — a Jimmy Buffett tribune band (6:30 p.m. on the Dan Reddell stage).
The entertainment starts with the Dixieland jazz band, Mud Skippers from 11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.; Zen Mountain Poets from 12:30-1:45; Deep Blue 2-3:15; Bobby Santa Cruz Band 3:30-4:45; and Sound Wave 5-6:15, with the Parrotheads closing the show.
There’ll be fresh seafood from local fishermen for sale at a variety of locations along the Embarcadero — including oysters, albacore, and spot prawns from the Morro Bay Fisherman’s Organization, rockfish and tacos from South Bay Wild, and assorted fish and chowder from the Central Coast Women for Fisheries.
And squeezed in there somewhere will be the Bay News/Aloha Shirt Shop Hawaiian Shirt Contest and Giovanni’s Market’s “Down the Hatch Oyster Eating Contest,” both long-time favorites at the Festival.
At sundown, there will be a fireworks show over the harbor from the Sandspit. See: www.mbhf.com/festival for complete details.
Musical line up:
11 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. – Mud Skippers;
12:30-1:45 p.m. – Zen Mountain Poets;
2-3:15 p.m. — Deep Blue;
3:30-4:45 p.m. — Bobby Santa Cruz Band;
5-6:15 p.m. — Sound Wave;
6:30-8 p.m. — Garratt Wilkin & the Parrotheads
