Now entering its fourth decade, Jobbie Nooner’s annual Beach Party usually takes place on the Friday before the 4th of July weekend at Gull Island in Lake St. Clair. In 2015, it will take place on June 26 and it will be bigger and louder than ever. What started as a beach party on Friday afternoon has morphed into a total bacchanalia, often referred to as “Midwest Carnival,” and includes live music, DJs, wet T-shirt contests, and televised flybys. Of local news teams. , all fueled by a lot of alcohol.
What is a Jobbie?
According to the book “Traveling Michigan’s Thumb,” Lee O’Dell started the Jobbie Nooner in 1975 in Anchor Bay to celebrate the birthday of his co-worker Lee Wagner. Jobbies, a nickname for workers in car factories, often started their shifts as early as 5 or 6 a.m., and left work at noon on the Friday before the July shutdown of car factories, taking a “noon” to celebrate on their boats. In the early 1980s, the celebration moved to Gull Island, an island created by the US Army Corps of Engineers about 6 miles across Lake St.
Clair Metropark. After dredging the shipping channels, the leftover sand and mud were dumped onto the site, creating Gull Island.
Seagull island
The only way to get to the island is by boat, although some more intrepid partiers hike from Anchor Bay through the shallow areas of Lake St. Clair. Boaters moor up the island or in the shallow waters that surround it, set up camp and celebrate all day and all night. There are no facilities of any kind on the island, but that doesn’t stop the party. In recent years, the party has grown tremendously, attracting as many as 10,000 people in 2010, according to the Detroit Free Press . There is a dedicated website for the celebration, jobbiecrew.com, that sells t-shirts and generally promotes the event and its after-parties.
This is NOT a place for children, as there is a strictly adult theme, a lot of nudity and alcohol consumption.
Opposition
Over the years, there have been a surprisingly small number of incidents. In 2005, the We Are Here Foundation, a nonprofit group seemingly fed up with the annual festival, temporarily leased Gull Island from the Army Corps of Engineers and planned to ban revelers from the island and promote a cleanup. Despite this, the party continued without incident. Also in 2005, according to the Macomb Daily , the Harrison Township studied the feasibility of a long-term lease for Seagull Island, driven by residents fed-up, but the effort failed.
In 2007, a death occurred when a drunk boater crashed into another boat and killed a passenger on board. In 2013, a body was discovered on the island just before the start of the festivities, although foul play was ruled out.
Local attraction
Although technically still under the administration of the Army Corps of Engineers, the festival is watched over by various law enforcement groups, including the US Coast Guard, US Customs and Border Protection. , The Macomb and St. Clair County Sheriffs Departments and the Clay Township and New Baltimore Police Departments Marine Patrols. The Border Patrol completed a security camera tower in 2009 to detect illegal border crossings, along with 11 other cameras along the St. Clair River and lake.
In 2012, the number of related arrests actually decreased. According to voicenews.com, Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel uses Jobbie Nooner to promote Lake St. Clair in some presentations and considers it worth more than $ 500,000 a year to local economies. “It has been going quite well in recent years,” he says, and sees it as an advantage for the region.
Raft out
In addition, there is an associated event called Raft-Off, a large gathering of ships off the island of Harsen, in which an effort is made to set a world record for the most united ships. A long double line of boaters meanders through the shallow waters, with participants “Walking the Gauntlet” between boats.
If you plan to join the party, bring sunscreen, plenty to eat and drink, and plenty of tolerance for indulging yourself too much. Watch out for inexperienced boaters and have some fun!
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