Festival of the Sea draws an ocean of hungry guests

POINT PLEASANT BEACH — A wave of visitors tens of thousands strong descended upon the 46th annual Festival of the Sea Saturday.

Presented by the Point Pleasant Beach Chamber of Commerce and Pine Belt Lakewood, this year’s Festival of the Sea featured more than 250 vendors lining Arnold and River avenues; including seafood vendors, which form the heart of the event each year.

This year, the fresh seafood offerings included dishes from local favorites, such as Atlantic Offshore Fishery, B2 Bistro, Point Lobster Co. and Shore Fresh Seafood.

Dylan Ippolito, general manager of Shore Fresh, gave The Ocean Star a rundown of Saturday’s clam and oyster sales numbers at around 2 p.m., less than halfway through the festival.

“We’re at about 3,000 oysters, about 2,500 clams, probably a couple hundred pounds of shrimp and non-stop shucking,” said Ippolito. “It’s been a good year. Summer started a little slow, but locals came out and supported us for a great summer. Look at how many people are here; it brings the community together. Restaurants helping other restaurants — it’s great.”

Ippolito left the conversation with three words of wisdom: “Just keep shucking.”

Across the festival grounds at the Point Lobster Co. tent was owner Shannon Godwin. Amid the continuous dishing of both hot and cold lobster rolls, Godwin took time to explain how, by her reckoning, the Sea.Hear.Now music festival happening on the previous weekend allowed for heavier-than-ever attendance at the Festival of the Sea.

“It’s 10 times better than last year. I think with Sea.Hear.Now, moving a week earlier, we got back to our traditional Seafood Fest where we have a majority of our locals and people who come and travel,” she said, calling the timing “100%” beneficial to the day’s turnout. “We’re serving hot and cold lobster rolls — that’s it. Pure lobster cooked in butter, or lobster in our citrus aioli that we make from scratch.”

Festival of the Sea “is just an amazing event to get all the locals together, and also a lot of people travel to come here for this festival,” said Godwin. “The Chamber of Commerce does a phenomenal job year after year. We’re just happy to be here.”

And get together the locals did. Point Pleasant Beach High School freshmen Sophie Giasulla and Charlotte Califano told The Ocean Star about their experience at the Festival of the Sea Saturday, and spoke about how being a local at the event is different from being one of the thousands of visitors.

“We’ve gone to lots of stores and booths today,” said Sophie. “Also, I’m on the cheer team, so I did face-painting at the booth to help raise money. I got some shrimp earlier, it was really good.”

“I’m on the surf team, and I’ve been here talking to the coach and different teams are having different booths to raise money for us,” said Charlotte.

“I think it’s fun,” Sophie said. “I’ve been going here since I was little. You see so many people you know, and it’s really cool. You even see people running the stands that you know.”