SEASON ENDS: A Great Summer on the Eastern Shore!

By GEORGE SOUTHERN
Cape Charles Wave

October 8, 2012

September 21 saw the official end of summer, but the “season” actually ended only yesterday — appropriately with a cold rain.

And this last week presented a spectacular finale to what might be Cape Charles’ most upbeat summer since the last ferry boat steamed away in 1949.

The season unofficially began with the June 8-12 Tall Ships at Cape Charles festival, drawing 7,000 visitors (and 43 vendors). The first-time event is now planned to repeat annually.

Nearly concurrent with the Tall Ships spectacular was the opening of three new businesses and one new building — all having a big impact on the Town.

The new building is the Cape Charles Harbor Bath House — a quarter-million dollar better mousetrap designed to attract high-roller yachts to the Harbor’s newly expanded floating docks. And it’s working — at the height of the season, more boats called at the harbor in a month than previously visited in a year.

Dockside is another new building — the Shanty — the restaurant/bar that quickly became the watering hole for the “in crowd” — especially after the owners gave in and installed air conditioning in place of the original open-air design.

Across the railroad tracks in Town, two other businesses opened. First came the tony boutique Hotel Cape Charles, where owner David Gammino has bet $2 million that upscale tourists will increasingly make Cape Charles their destination.

The other new business was Brown Dog Ice Cream, where owner Miriam Elton quickly discovered the crowds could eat ice cream faster than she could make it by hand.

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July 4th once was the only big day of the year for Cape Charles. Now other events rival the 4th, but this year’s parade seemed bigger than ever.

Thirty days later came the first Clam Slam Festival, the brainchild of Harbor Master Smitty Dize.

Capped with the wildly popular boat docking contest, the Clam Slam is also planned to repeat next year.

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And that brings us up to this past weekend, which began very early — on Wednesday, in fact, with the 20th annual Harvest Festival at Sunset Beach. Sponsored by the Eastern Shore Chamber of Commerce, the festival may not be in the Town of Cape Charles, but it’s definitely in the original Cape Charles, at the tip of the peninsula.

Eastern Shore residents have an unusual way of celebrating the most significant events of the season — they do it with yard sales. So this weekend saw yet another Town-wide Yard Sale, where customers presumably stock up with goods to peddle in their own yards on the next go-around.

Friday kicked off the Eastern Shore Birding and Wildlife Festival, attracting nature enthusiasts from far and wide. And Mother Nature was largely kind to her devotees, blessing them with an incredible migratory display amid perfect weather — until reality set in Saturday night. Gusty winds blew in a 30-degree temperature drop as the season ended.

In fact, the cold, wet weather was perfect for Sunday afternoon’s piano and cello recital at the Palace Theatre. Who wants to be inside on a beautiful Sunday afternoon?

But we can still look forward to “Indian Summer”– although no one can predict exactly when it may occur.