Decorated boats circle around the bay, with flags and rainbow streamers trailing behind them in the wind, with the sound of taiko drums booming as they are played aboard the sailing boats.
On Saturday morning, I joined my junior high school students from Ogi to raise the flag on one of the boats and then ride around the bay! The students spend several weeks every year making one the huge flags to be featured on one of the festival boats. In the past, children made all of the flags representing each neighborhood, however in recent years since the population and number of children decreased so much that the everyone in the neighborhood, adults included, must help with making the flag.
Once we all arrived, we all gathered by one of the boats that had its long pole laying down, stretching across the road and into the yard across the street from the dock. There we slid the huge banner the students made for it onto the pole. Then we split into two groups and pulled on ropes angling out from the sides to raise it up, while several men of Ogi directed.
However, once we got it upright in the air we saw that the banner was snagged and not pulled all the way down. Since they could not loosen it by shaking the banner the men decided that pole needed to come back down. So the men carefully and slowly lowered this 75 foot tall, huge wooden pole. As they lowered it it swung back and forth a bit, dangerously swinging close to the two buildings on either side of it. In fact, a man inside the house came out onto his balcony to calmly watch as the pole narrowly missed his house by a few feet.
Once the banner was smoothed out, the students were called to reorganize to raise the flag-boat once more. Next the students were split into three groups and we boarded three different boats. The boys played taiko as we zoomed around the bay a few times, enjoying our ride in the beautifully bannered boats.
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