Ahoy Windjammer Days (WJD) fans! The 61st event, to be held June 25 - July 1, is but two months away and those Friends of Windjammer Days have been wicked busy!

FWJD board member Pete Ripley announced these fine windjammers will soon to be hoisting their sails bound for Boothbay Harbor: Alert, Eastwind, Apple Jack (the former Lazy Jack), Eagle, Thomas E. Lannon, Tyrone, Isaac H. Evans, Heritage, Sycamore, True North, Hesper, Isabella, Virginia, Grace Bailey, When and If and Oliver Hazard Perry. And there are a few more Ripley hopes to add to the list.

The Meet & Greet for the captains featured in the Maritime Explorers series printed weekly in the Boothbay Register and on the the official website, boothbayharborwindjammerdays.org, is at Oceanside Resort on Atlantic Avenue from 3:30 to 5 p.m. Monday, June 26. The public is encouraged to come and meet the men and women they have been reading about all winter and spring: George McEvoy, Herb and Doris Smith, Kathleen Jones, Chip and Nan Davison, Glenn W. Hodgdon, Rusty Court, David Nutt, Bruce and Maureen Kinsey, Barry Gibson, Brad Collins, John Albaum and Annie Wilcox.

Tickets to the Crab Cake Cook-Off are on sale now. Find them on the Festival website. At the April 11 meeting, the four competitors were announced: Carriage House, McSeagull’s, Brady’s and Boothbay Harbor Inn. The proceeds will be split evenly between Friends of WJD and Maine Lobstermen’s Association.

Boothbay’s Got Talent, the Festival’s youth talent competition, returns to a live format this year. The event will be on the Whale Park stage on Commercial Street at 6 p.m. Monday, June 26.

Signup has begun for the Street Parade, coming Wednesday, June 28! Contact Boothbay Harbor Region Chamber of Commerce at 192 Townsend Ave., next to Hannaford, for an application. Or download one at https://bit.ly/3zYczDp

The two-day event, Artists Alley, returns Thursday, June 29 and Friday, June 30, in Whale Park. Artists at work, to date, will include Charleston, South Carolina-based oil painter Rick Reinert Olena Babak, oil painter of landscapes and figurative works; and Joy to the Wind Gallery’s John Seitzer, who works in a variety of media. The Windjammer Days drawings by Boothbay Region Elementary School students in Jessica Nadeau’s art classes will be displayed again this year ... They were quite a hit with the visitors last year! Nadeau will also be contributing a sculpture the students are making with visiting artist Pamela Moulton.

In addition to the official WJD T-shirts, light gray stadium blankets measuring 50” x 60” will be for sale. Choose between two designs: the Festival logo or a Boothbay Harbor nautical chart, for $40. Find the items at the Friends of Windjammer Days tent in Whale Park on Tuesday, June 27 and Wednesday, June 28. And speaking of those dates, the Pirates of the Dark Rose will be in Boothbay Harbor then as well; look for their ship Must Roos at the town dock.

In children’s activities, Windjammers For Wee Mateys will be at Boothbay Harbor Memorial Library; and Kids Alley will be at the top of Boothbay House Hill Road (next to Enchantments).

And, as a prelude to the Festival, the Schooner Bowdoin will be here for three days, June 4-6. Tentative schedule: Saturday, June 3: Noon-4 p.m., public tours; 6-8 p.m. Sunday, June 4: 10 a.m.-noon, available for reserved group tours and school groups; noon-4 p.m., open to the public; Monday, June 5: 10 a.m.-noon, open to the public.

Keep your course set for the region’s biggest, longest running festival! As always, to stay up-to-date on all things Windjammer Days, visit www.boothbayharborwindjammerdays.org