Kicking off the summer season with the Beach Bum Parade

TYBEE ISLAND, Ga. (WTOC) - If you’re heading to Tybee Island on Friday evening, you should prepare to get wet - rain or shine.

That’s because the Beach Bum Parade is back. Did you know the Island has been starting summer with this parade since 1987?

The co-founder calls it the last local’s Friday before tourists and visitors take over the island.

This parade is all about having fun and getting wet. Essentially 40-50 entrants will drive down the main drag of the island in a water fight with all the people along the route.

This whole thing started with a men’s softball team back in the 80s that the co-founder said had a homecoming dance and parade.

Since then, it’s taken on the water theme and grown into a Tybee tradition.

“All of a sudden the city of Tybee will be filled with people enjoying themselves and getting wet, that’s what it’s going to be all about. It didn’t start out that way but that’s what it suddenly became and nobody else in the world has the type of atmosphere to be able to do this,” Jack Boylston said.

What Boylston calls the world’s largest, oldest, and most fun water fight starts at 6:30 p.m. with staging happening in the North Beach parking area starting at 4 p.m.

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