WHALE WEEK returns to Provincetown!

Thursday, July 12, 2012

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
PCCS Contact:
Cathrine Macort
+1-508-487-3622 x103
+1-508-808-9660
[email protected]

The Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies invites you to bring family and friends to Whale Week – A Celebration of the Sea!

This fun, marine-themed festival, which takes place between July 23 and July 28, was launched in 2011 and is the brain-child of the Center’s Education director, Jesse Mechling, who wanted to expand visitors’ connection with the marine environment on the Outer Cape.

Whale Week features a host of fun, family-friendly events and activities, all with a briny theme.

The festival begins on Monday, July 23 at 5pm with the hugely entertaining Home Made Boat Race, sponsored and coordinated by Venture Athletics Kayak Shop. Teams from local businesses and organizations will launch their water-craft on the beach behind Whalers

Wharf and the Crown and Anchor; Jay Critchley of the Provincetown Community Compact will emcee and Candy Collins-Boden of the Provincetown Chamber, Erin Atwood of the Provincetown Business Guild and comedian Mimi Gonzalez will judge. Points will be awarded not only for the contestants speed on the water, but also on the inventiveness of their boat and costume, and on the amount of marine debris they collect en route. Pledges collected by participating teams will support the Center’s education programs.

On Tuesday, July 24 at 9:30am, Center naturalists will lead an exploration of the tidal flats at the West End Breakwater. This free tour introduces people to the diverse and fascinating critters that inhabit the harbor and marsh. At 11am a Marine Scavenger Hunt begins from the Center for Coastal Studies kiosk on MacMillan Pier, with a “shopping list” that will take participants along the wharf and across the town beaches. Tuesday activities wrap up with a Nautical Trivia Night at 7:30 pm at the Underground Bar on Commercial Street.

“The Tale of Ibis” is a puppet and live action theater performance for children that tells the story of Ibis, the first whale to be disentangled by the Center. The play was adapted for stage by Jody O’Neil from the book Ibis, A True Whale Story, by John Himmelman; Mr. O’Neil also directs the production. Performances will take place on Wednesday at Provincetown Town Hall at 11am and 4pm. This event is sponsored by the Josephine Foundation and the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod.

If you want to learn more about the leviathans that inhabit our waters, then take an hour to listen to a lecture on the Whales of Cape Cod, presented by Jesse on Thursday, July 26 at 11 am at the Province Lands Visitor Center. At 6 pm, budding artists can attend a free landscape photography workshop and capture the Outer Cape’s most iconic scenes while learning new techniques from an award-winning photographer.

Whale Week wraps up on Friday, July 27 at 10 am with Whale Olympics, Arts and Crafts at the Bas Relief Park on Bradford Street. A slew of fun games and activities are planned, and kids will have an opportunity to make sun prints, mobiles or white line wood block prints of the different sea creatures that live in our waters. Children of all ages are sure to have a whale of a time!
For more information about Whale Week, please visit www.coastalstudies.org or call Jesse Mechling at 508-487-3623 x103. A full calendar of events is also available on the Center’s Facebook page – www.facebook.com/coastalstudies.