#DEWEY BEACH LIFE REGISTRATION#
No registration is needed just to tour the facility. Pre-registration for the eco-programs is required and costs vary. From April through October the hours are 8 a.m. Kids will love this demonstration and will love it even more if chosen to participate. The Rehoboth Beach Dewey Beach Chamber of Commerce provides your family with movies and bonfires on the beach in Dewey.
#DEWEY BEACH LIFE MOVIE#
Then a lucky participant is lowered into a breeches buoy (a container-like contraption that a person’s legs slide through like pants) and then is hoisted by a pulley system to rescue. The Summer Movie & Bonfire Program is produced by the Rehoboth Beach - Dewey Beach Chamber of Commerce. During the drill, a live rescue cannon is shot off to run a pulley to the faux ship mast.
The big annual event, the Maritime Heritage Festival, is held in July and features crafts, storytelling, a pirate photo booth, face painting, live music and the highlight may be the live demonstration of a Breeches Buoy Rescue Drill. There are kayak eco-tours, lantern (ghost-ish) tours that takes place in the evening, horseshoe crabs, shipwrecks, jelly fish, sea glass jewelry, surf fishing, nautical knots and numerous other programs for kids and families held at various times and days. Numerous summer eco programs and events take place at the Indian River Life-Saving Station throughout the summer. The surfman worked, ate and lived at the station while on shift.įamilies will enjoy touring the living quarters, kitchen and one-ton surfboat used to paddle out to rescues. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Indian River Station, which had the state’s first telephone, is much like the modern day fire house. The surfman, who were often times farmers in the winter months, were considered the heroes of their time, rescuing countless people from shipwrecks along the coastline with equipment that doesn’t even come close to the standards that are used today. Each station was assigned distinct colors so it could be identified from the ocean. The Indian River Life-Saving Station was built in 1876 and painted pumpkin (or orange) to signify the state and cranberry (or dark red) to signify the specific station.
Life-saving stations and surfman were used for water rescues prior to the U.S. This historic maritime site located closer to Dewey Beach rather than Rehoboth, despite having a Rehoboth address, features guided and self-guided tours of the life-saving station.