WANCHESE, N.C. — Dare Day Dockside kicks off in Wanchese on Saturday, a day that Wanchese Marina has been working tirelessly toward for six weeks. The event comes after the Town of Manteo announced it wouldn't be having the event this year back in March.
"It was just a festival of everybody getting together," said Kimberly Stetson, co-organizer of Dare Day Dockside.
That's Stetson talking about the decade-long tradition of Dare Day and what it means to the Outer Banks community. Like many, Stetson felt blindsided when the Town of Manteo announced it wouldn't be happening there this year.
"It was a little shocking," said Stetson.
Just after that announcement is when Brenda Fann and Stetson jumped into action to continue the tradition this year at Wanchese Marina, naming it "Dare Day Dockside."
"Six weeks ago is when we started on this venture, and to pull something that we pulled together in six weeks has been incredible, and it has taken a ton of people to do it," said Brenda Fann, co-organizer of the event.
On Saturday, the marina will be transformed into a massive celebration sporting more than 80 vendors, live music, kids' activities, a silent auction benefiting charity organizations, a dunk tank and much more.
"We have a huge, huge children's area going on, which was very important to Brenda and I, that we really do something for the community and for the children in the community, because I think Dare Days was celebrated by so many people, and particularly with their children," said Stetson.
Organizers are also bringing the Wanchese flair to the event with fresh local seafood, boating tours and a chance to learn and connect with the men and women who are involved in the commercial fishing industry.
"Sitting right next to us is one of O'Neal's Seafood Market, this is one of their net boats, so they are the commercial side. They brought this over there, so we could kind of show people what a commercial boat looks like, and then right over behind me, where most of our commercial guys are, they're going to set up displays of nets and different things to just educate the people on what's going on. Get these people to come down and check out Wanchese and see what an old-timey fishing village is like, and pretty much where the seafood industry started hundreds of years ago," said Fann.
The event is from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, and the organizers have been blown away by the response and are already thinking about their plans for another event of this kind next year.
"It was well received by everybody that it was being taken up somewhere in Dare County and continued on. So we were really excited about that," said Stetson.
For more information on what you can expect tomorrow, you can head to Wanchese Marina's Facebook page here.
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