Bopple Race bobs back

HOLDEN BEACH—It’s that time of year again for spring festivities, a bopple race, and an age-old question by newcomers, “What the heck is a bopple?”

It’s the high-point event of Days at the Docks, Holden Beach’s annual salute-to-spring festival scheduled for this Saturday and Sunday under and around the Brunswick Island town’s high-rise bridge.

Looking suspiciously like bobbing apples bearing names or numbers on sticks, bopples are dropped from the top of the town’s high-rise bridge for a race down the Intracoastal Waterway, this year set for around 3 p.m. Sunday. The first bopples crossing the finish line reap prizes for their owners.

Bopples can be bought from local merchants or at the festival for $1.

Days at the Docks, which dates back to the 1980s, kicks off with 5K and 10K runs at 8 a.m. Saturday, April 26.

Arts and crafts and food vendors will sell their wares from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. Other festivities include live music.

Sunday afternoon, the Holden Beach mayor and commissioners will toss competing bopples from atop the Holden Beach bridge. Current will carry the bopples toward a designated finish line. Bopples coming in first or second will win a “handsome” prize, according to the Holden Beach Merchants Association.

Other highlights this year:

Holden Beach Chapel has planned several events Saturday, including a silent auction from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. for original art, service projects, jewelry and collectibles and recreational offerings such as beach home rentals, a quail hunt, golf packages and tickets to a University of North Carolina football game.

A pancake breakfast prepared by the Men’s Club will be served from 7:30-10 a.m. The menu includes pancakes, trimmings, juice and coffee for $6 adults and $3 children.

New Ladies Fellowship cookbooks, “Good Eats,” will be available for sale for $20 per copy. Proceeds from these projects will go toward the chapel building fund.

In addition, an American Red Cross blood drive is scheduled for 12:30-5:30 p.m. Saturday at the chapel. Call 842-6888 for an appointment. Walk-ins are also welcome.

For more information about Days at the Docks, log onto the Greater Holden Beach Merchants Association’s Web site at: www.hbmerch.com.