Summertime crowds have packed up and gone and the hotel rates have dropped, but the party has just begun. Fall is festival time at Delaware’s beaches and surrounding towns, with multiday events celebrating marine life, music, Halloween monsters and movies.

The historic town of Lewes gets the fun rolling on October 3 with Boast the Coast Day, a maritime-themed festival with seafood-tasting, family entertainment, tours of historic ships and a lighted boat parade. The Lewes Historical Society joins in with its fall juried craft fair and tours of its 12 historic buildings, 9 of which are clustered on the society’s lovely landscaped grounds.

The following day, the University of Delaware’s Lewes campus hosts the College of Marine and Earth Studies’ Coast Day, showcasing exhibits, demonstrations, entertainment and, of course, seafood. Kids will enjoy the touch tank, crab races and other hands-on activities.

Less than two weeks later, jazz musicians and fans roll into Rehoboth Beach for the town’s Autumn Jazz Festival. The long weekend of performances at the Rehoboth Beach Convention Center commences Wednesday, October 14, with a grand-opening party celebrating Motown’s 50th anniversary and featuring The Spinners. Contemporary jazz artists Peter White, Mindi Abair and Kim Waters take the stage Thursday night, followed on Friday night by six-time Grammy nominee Dave Koz, Saturday afternoon by Soul Summit II, Saturday evening by Jazz Attack, and Sunday afternoon by keyboardist Brian Culbertson, among others. It all wraps up the evening of Sunday, October 18, with an All-Star Jam closing party in celebration of the Jazz Festival’s 20th anniversary.

Rehoboth Beach’s popular Sea Witch Halloween & Fiddler’s Festival also celebrates 20 successful years in 2009, and it gets bigger and better every year. The three-day weekend festival, October 23–25, features costume parades for people and pets, a broom-tossing contest, beach games, fiddle- and banjo-playing competitions, and choreographed horseback performances on the beach by saltwater cowboys the Maryland Rough Riders. Other family activities include scarecrow making, face painting, a pirate’s treasure trail and musical entertainment. Cape Henlopen State Park adds to the Halloween-themed fun with its own Children’s Fantasy Trail that same weekend. The quarter-mile, nonscary trick-or-treat trail through the maritime forest comes alive with volunteers dressed up as favorite storybook characters.

What happens to all those leftover pumpkins when Halloween is over? In Delaware they chunk ’em. Technically, the wacky, homegrown Punkin’ Chunkin’ no longer qualifies as a beach festival since it moved two years ago to the western part of the state, but its roots are in the seaside, and it’s still an easy drive from coastal hotels. Pumpkin chunkers travel from all over the country to see who can launch an 8- to 10-pound pumpkin the farthest using homemade catapults, trebuchets and air cannons. The current world record is 4,483.51 feet. This year’s events take place November 6–8.

The fall festival season wraps up November 11–15 with the Rehoboth Beach Film Society’s Independent Film Festival. Nearly 100 feature films, documentaries and shorts will be shown during the festival, with as many as 40 screenings per day. This year’s country spotlight on Japan will include not only film screenings but also cultural seminars and sake tasting.
—Theresa Gawlas Medoff