Has winter made you feel a bit down and out? Are you bored to the point of tears? Do you seem to not have the energy you had last year when there were a million things to do? Do you feel like your trapped in a cage and wasting away to nothing?
Well, the Watermen’s Museum staff and members is looking forward to a great year! It won’t be long now…only though the month of March before we re-open on 1 April and THE FUN BEGINS!
Over the winter break, we have done a few small updates to our interior exhibits and re-arranged a few boats on our grounds. The Events Tent is in for its annual cleaning and minor repairs. It will go back up in a few weeks. Our old dry ship (the pirate ship in the windmill lot) has been dismantled and the construction of its replacement will start tomorrow when the wood is delivered.
We’ve scheduled bands for every Friday evening between April 29th and August 26th. You can look forward to outdoor concerts by ShantyGrass, Fiddlers Green, Muddy Gems and many other artists. And, of course, each of these concerts will be supported by great seafood and hot dogs catered by our friends at Carrot Tree Kitchens.
Our summer Camps again offer children the opportunity to be a pirate, dig for artifacts, build a boat, or explore the diverse environments of world. Our field trip programs are already filling up for spring. These visits offer Pre-K through college students, at-risk youth, physically and emotionally challenged adults, seniors and civic groups, the opportunity to explore and learn about history, the environment, conservation, culture and many more topics.
Just like last year, we will offer members and the general public an array of educational and entertainment venues and events, as well has hosting special events throughout the year. Examples are weekly or monthly concerts, dances, storytelling, and lecture events. Many of these are accompanied by seafood dinners, highlighting our Commercial Watermen roots as fishers, clammers, oysterers, and crabbers.
And, we hold large-scale annual events such as our springtime grand re-opening and a pirate invasion, summertime concert and vendor events, and or always-popular Oyster Roast, Folk Festival, Yorktown Days / Maritime Heritage celebration, and Chili Cook-off. A key note to remember this year is that we will have our Annual Oyster Roast on the same October weekend as the Yorktown Days / Maritime Heritage celebration.
We have again been selected as on of Virginia’s Top Wedding locations, an honor we have been privileged to receive for both 2015 and 2016. And’ we host numerous other events such as corporate retreats, civic group meetings, Our Beach, Carriage House, Events Tent, and large vehicle parking lot make us a one-of-a-kind venue in Yorktown. And, of course, you have to love the spectacular view.
We are building boats, painting buildings and fences. We’re interviewing commercial watermen and will show these interviews in our small museum theater area. We are still working with maritime archaeologists and civil and government experts to explore and identify the historic shipwrecks. And, we are working with the folks at Jordan Marine and Julie Ann Seafood to establish Watermen Heritage Tours aboard local deadrise fishing boats, allowing the public to experience a day in the life of a commercial waterman.
If you have any ideas on how we can improve, please let us know. We exist to make learning about the lives, culture, boats, and work of the Watermen from before the colonists through the modern times.
So, come join us — be a visitor or a Museum member. We promise you a lot of fun…and you’ll even learn something along the way.
