Island Bay Festival 2025

Parading and Blessing the Boats

In sharp contrast to last year’s Island Bay Parade, which was freezing, the Wellington weather turned on the charm and gave us a scorcher this year.

We’ve been doing this parade for many years, and it’s a good one (and a long one). All the way down The Parade from Avon Road to the Festival zone in Shorland Park, then a little 10-minute gig in front of the rotunda (or as some call it “the roundy thing”).

The crowds are always super-friendly and receptive, and the festival as a whole has a real close-knit community small-town vibe to it. It’s lovely.

As always, we were positioned near the back of the parade, right in front of the poor old police horses (who I’m sure just love us) including this year a teeny tiny Shetland pony. “Ooooh look at the teeny tiny baby horse!” we all exclaimed with great excitement.

We often have an issue with speed at this parade – some years we’re too fast and end up virtually running the course, other years we’re too slow and miss our roundy thing gig slot. This year we did a Goldilocks and got it just right. Go us!

Following our little performance at the rotunda we had a couple of hours free to wander round the stalls, have a snack or two and do a bit of people-watching before the Blessing of the Boats. My attention was caught by a small human having quite the tantrum while their mum very patiently tried to get them up off the ground without too much fuss. Dad reached down to hold small human’s other hand, and miraculously the tantrum ceased and all three happily continued on their way.

“Hey that was [super-famous All Black and Hurricanes stalwart XXX]” exclaimed my Batucada companion. Nice! I love the way that even super-famous people can have a lovely family day out in Aotearoa without being mobbed by crowds of fans. We’ve always been really chill about things like that. Long may it continue.

Study in “samba face” – Wellington Batucada at Island Bay Festival 2025 – photo by Lisa Leask

This year we were invited to lead a second parade from the park down to the waterfront ready for the annual Blessing of the Boats. Each year, local and visiting clergy venture out into the Bay to bless the fishing boats after they’ve made a trip around Tapu te Ranga Island. Our job was to lead the clergy and supporters around Shorland Street and down to the beach to board their boat so the blessing ceremonies can begin.

The Blessing of the Boats ceremony has been adopted in Island Bay by its Italian community since 1933 and is unique to Island Bay. We felt honoured to have been asked, as this is a very important and traditional part of the Island Bay Festival. It always attracts large crowds to the coastline, who come to watch boats from all over Wellington line up to be blessed for safe passage and bountiful catches.

Our small group ended up right next to the announcer who was giving a running commentary as the boats circled the bay and jostled for position before setting off around Tapu te Ranga Island. It was such a lovely community vibe, as she took the time to greet all the local families by name. It really summed up the warm and welcoming atmosphere of the day.

Once we’d watched the boats set off on their journey it was time to leave and head off to our traditional Sunday band practice. No rest for the wicked (or us!).