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A few days ago I posted a couple of pictures of the annual Damariscotta Pumpkin Festival. This coastal Maine town takes its giant gourds seriously with a weeks worth of celebrations that ends with the most popular event…

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The Pumpkin Regatta. We didn’t go, but it’s so delightfully quirky I have to share some of the photos I saw on the news.

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Definition of a pumpkin regatta – oddly dressed people cut big holes in oddly decorated hollowed out pumpkins and take to the water.

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Sometimes the spectators are oddly dressed as well.

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The Regatta is well attended and covered by the local media.

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A Viking Longboat?

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It’s not long, but why not?

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There was even a gnome.

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I always wonder how this tradition got started.

Who looked at a big pumpkin and thought, put an outboard on that and you’ve really got something.

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Of course some entries do it the old fashioned hand powered way. And from the look of this picture, paddling slowly is not the way to go.

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Mainers.

Ya gotta love ‘em.

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