Swamp Fest

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When I was out riding around the other day I saw signs for Swamp Fest. I had another day with nothing planned, so I decided to check it out. When I looked on-line I found that 2018 is the 25th event for this being held, and has grown from a small community fundraising festival to an annual event that draws thousands from all over. They bused people to the fest from different parking locations. Having a bike I was lucky because they had bike parking almost at the front gate. After paying you cross a bridge to get over to all the vendors and events. As I was crossing one of the volunteers told me that there were about 10 manatees straight over at the beach. There was a small group of people watching, and when I looked I could see three of them. Most had left as the tide was going out. It was pretty cool, as I have never seen a manatee before. You could see a couple of them off in the distance playing and rolling in the water. Wish they were closer so I could have gotten some more pictures.

After watching the manatees for a bit, I headed down to where all the vendors were. Over in the middle they had a stage with live music. I didn’t get the name of the first group, but the second band was Free Loaders. I walked around and checked all the vendors out, then walked down to the area where all the food trucks were. With all the different aromas it was hard to decide what to eat. After I went back to the stage area and listened to the music for a while. Before leaving I went back over to where the manatees were hoping they had come back in. No yet, but I could see them from a distance. While checking that area out I noticed these little crabs just coming out of the mud. You will notice in the pictures that they have one large claw and one small one, these are fiddler crabs. The male has one large claw and one small claw, whereas the female has both the same size claws.

I wandered around for a while, then crossed the bridge back to the entrance. There was a structure that you could climb and get a birds eye view. After leaving the fest I took a left out of the parking lot which took me south along the immediate coastline to Hudson. I passed quite a few bikers, so this must be a popular riding spot. I can understand why, it was a beautiful ride.