Shown here is an aerial view of the 2023 Port Clinton Lighthouse Festival. The festival will return this year on Aug. 17. (Submitted photo)

The Port Clinton Lighthouse & Maritime Festival, now in its sixth year, will take place on Saturday, Aug. 17, at Waterworks Park in Port Clinton. Admission to the festival, which begins at 10 a.m. and ends at 4 p.m., is free.

The United Way’s Incredible Rubber Duck Race, held in past years as a separate event, is now officially part of the Lighthouse Festival. The Rubber Duck Race will be held in Derby Pond beginning at 2 p.m. supported by the Port Clinton Volunteer Fire Department. Other popular events at the festival include a Plein Air Art Show sponsored by the Greater Port Clinton Area Arts Council and the popular Antique & Classic Wooden Boat Show. More than twenty boats will compete for prizes in multiple categories.

Lighthouse Conservancy board member Geoff Mendenhall and fellow amateur radio hobbyists reached out to lighthouses around the globe during last year’s lighthouse festival. They will return this year. (Submitted photo)

Live music will again be a feature of the festival, with performances in the music tent by the popular Ottawa County Bluegrass Band; Great Lakes troubadour, Russ Franzen; the musical stylings of Rosemarie Schramm; and North Coast Tempo, a barbershop singing group. Franzen will present “Great Lakes History in Song,” featuring songs about the Great Lakes, including his own composition about the Port Clinton Lighthouse, written for the festival.

The lighthouse festival is put on by the Port Clinton Lighthouse Conservancy. The Conservancy restored, owns and operates the 128-year-old pier light, which saw service on the west pier at the mouth of the Portage River from 1896 until 1952. The Conservancy created the festival as a fundraiser for the lighthouse and to showcase both the historic structure and the maritime history of Port Clinton. The festival is held each year on the third Saturday in August to coincide with International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend, honoring lighthouses around the world and the radio operators who made communication light stations possible. In this tradition, HAM radio operator and Conservancy board member Geoff Mendenhall will be broadcasting on short wave radio from a tent near the lighthouse.