Blacktip Island community leaders will welcome public input tonight at the island’s Heritage House regarding what to include in the island’s inaugural Heritage and Culture Festival tentatively scheduled for next month. (photo courtesy of Lhb1239)
An ad hoc committee of Blacktip Island’s community leaders this week announced it is seeking suggestions regarding how the small Caribbean island might celebrate its inaugural Heritage and Culture Festival this fall.
“We’ve been kicking the idea around for years, but it’s never really gotten any traction,” de facto island mayor Jack Cobia said. “Tourism numbers are down this year, though, so we decided to launch a heritage festival to get word out about what makes us special, and hopefully attract more visitors.
“We’re leaving no stone unturned,” Cobia said. “Everyone’s welcome, and there’s no bad ideas. That’s what’s hamstrung us in the past—folks worried their suggestion wouldn’t be good enough. If this thing’s gonna be a success, we need all hands on deck.”
Island residents say the event faces existential challenges.
“We have plenty of history here, but none of it’s interesting,” Tiperon University-Blacktip chancellor Donna Requin said. “Or worth celebrating. It’s Blacktip Island. Nothing much happens here. And as for local culture, there really isn’t any, unless you count drinking beer and getting into arguments. Jack and his committee may be out of luck there.”
Others jumped at the idea.
“Blacktip has a rich and varied history,” Rosie Blenny said. “There’s Lumpy Bottoms arriving with the first settlers in 1684. There’s Dervil Bottoms—later St. Dervil—teaching the iguanas to sing not long after that. There’s Itchy Bottoms fighting off the pirates time and again in the 1750s. And there’s Sandy Bottoms starting his guest house back in the ‘70s.
“That last one may be the most important of all,” Blenny said. “Until then, Blacktippers had rough lives. Most got by with subsistence farming and fishing, and earning what money they could selling what was left over. Sandy’s place, that grew into his current beach resort, was the beginning of tourism here. After that, we cut out the middleman and started harvesting money directly off the tourists. It truly transformed us.”
The Heritage and Culture committee will meet Friday at 7 p.m. in the island’s Heritage House. Complimentary snacks and drinks will be served to encourage turnout.
“Everybody on this little rock’s a sucker for free stuff,” Cobia said. “We get a bunch of folks here for freebies, them get ‘em good and liquored up, the ideas’ll flow like rum. We just need one sober person to write it all down.”
The Blacktip Times 