Festival Of The Sea Planned For May

One of Anguilla’s tourism activities, Festival Del Mar (of the Sea), which started in February last year as part of a cultural education programme, will now be held from May 16-31 this year, according to Festivals Coordinator with the island’s Tourist Board, Fitzroy Tomlinson.

“We have decided to move it this year for a number of reasons,” he explained. “One is that the sea conditions are not suitable sometimes early in the year and number two, there are plans by the Chairman of the Tourist Board and other persons on the island to develop a regatta around May which we think can very well form a very integral part of a festival of this nature. We hope to move it around the island to most of our fishing villages such as Island Harbour, West End and Sandy Ground which will be involved in certain aspects of the programme.
“You will find that apart from the regatta, which will be held at a point on the island, there will be fish fries, sports on the beach and various other activities. So basically, it is more than just a regatta. It is something that will be forming part of a bigger event which is Festival Del Mar.”
Mr. Tomlinson said the programme of activities was still in its early stages. He explained that it was somewhat late in marketing and promoting the event because it was necessary to wait for certain approvals by Government regarding how the regatta aspect would play into the two-week festival.
The Festivals Coordinator continued: “We are not going to have activities every day but the weekends will be used for the major events… The way the regatta will tie into the programme is still being developed. As I understand it a yacht club has been formed in Anguilla and this will more or less be involved in the actual planning or the regatta aspect. A number of persons will be called up to form a committee which will also involve personnel from the Boat-racing Committee so we are trying to tie everything into one.
“However, it is envisioned that the regatta will in no way affect our major boat-racing which will happen around the Anguilla Day festivities. We are trying to tie the various activities and span them across the island at different locations during the weekends. That will help to move around some of the people who will be here for the regatta to get them involved in other aspects of Anguillian culture. For example, we may have one Sunday at the Island Harbour Beach, as we did earlier last year, and we want to encourage that to happen again whereby the villagers will do their fish-fry and other activities. In getting some of the people on the yachts to travel to the various areas of the island, it will also mean that taxi-drivers and car rental companies will benefit from this.
“You will not find a lot of activities centred in one location on the island. The major regatta will be developed [at Rendezvous Bay] but the activities will not be focused only in that area but will be moved from place to place.”
Mr. Tomlinson noted that while a committee was being formed to concentrate on the regatta, it was envisioned that the yachts would be involved in several races. “One of the races they are thinking about is to St. Martin around Anguillita and back into Rendezvous Bay,” he said. “So there are a number of plans to have different races and probably to have a race starting from St. Martin to Anguilla as well to get more involvement in the whole event. So I envision that the boats will more or less move from place to place.”
He said that as the yacht club was being developed at Rendezvous Bay the headquarters would be located in that area. According to him by mid-March his office may be able to provide in-depth details on the exact dates when the regatta will take place and how they will be structured.
He observed that the regatta would be used to get more people into Anguilla. “We are now tying the whole thing into a bigger festival over a period of two weeks. We think we did not promote Festival Del Mar as we ought to have done last year. Anguillians have a very close relationship with the sea and if we tie everything into one major festival, we will in the long run achieve our objective and that is basically to bring more people into Anguilla,” Tomlinson added.
Meanwhile, Tomlinson said, his office was also planning other events apart from Festival Del Mar. One of them is the Summer Festival to be held from July 30-August 10. This weekend there will be the annual retreat at Rendezvous Bay Hotel during which some plans will be made for the event. A major regional marketing campaign is being planned and arrangements are being made to take advantage of such events as the 25th anniversary of tourism in Anguilla and the 50th anniversary of Secondary School Education on the island to make the festival even more attractive this year. After the summer festival plans will be laid for the Jazz Festival in November.
“This has already been a major challenge to get off the ground. We had our launching last November which went down very well and right now we are working with B.E.T. Events Production to structure exactly what will happen for 2003,” he stated. He disclosed that there were a number of enquiries and pledges of financial support. Already there has been a donation of US$10,000, pledges of up to US$50,000 and the Anguilla Government has budgeted US$50,000 towards the production of the Jazz Festival.
He added that the festival would be used as a major international marketing tool for Anguilla and that a lot of effort would be brought to bear towards that end.

Fitzroy Tomlinson