Harbor Days Going Strong After 46 Years

A beachfront setting, tours of a lighthouse rarely glimpsed by the public and a nearby international film festival drew thousands Sunday for the Port Hueneme Harbor Days Festival.

Throughout its 46-year history, the two-day event has been an annual standard for many, as evidenced by the multiple-generation families here for the festival and its Saturday parade.

“It’s been a tradition ever since I was little and I used to march in the parade,” said Tori Tuando, 20, of Port Hueneme, who came with her mother, Cathi Tuando. “Now I just come and walk around.”

Eva and Jerry Becham of Oxnard brought their three grandchildren, McCoy, Hutton and Georgie Becker, all of Ojai, to enjoy similar rides, crafts and booths that children have enjoyed at the festival for years.

Harbor Days is organized by the nonprofit Port Hueneme Harbor Days Committee, composed of local residents.

Highland steps performed by young dancers from Oxnard’s MacKinnon Dance Academy and booths of Polynesian crafts lent an international flavor to Harbor Days, as did screenings of films from around the world at the Port Hueneme International Film Festival. The latter was a separate event held across Surfside Drive at Beachfront Studio, the former Dorill B. Wright Cultural Arts Center.

For many Harbor Days participants, the highlight was a free tour via shuttle bus of the Port Hueneme Lighthouse, built in 1941 and opened to the public for only the second time.

Some on the tour said they frequently walk along Port Hueneme beach, see the lighthouse and yearn for a peek inside.

They got their chance Sunday, at least to see the ground floor of the 52-foot-tall structure. Its upper floors are still being renovated. Coast Guard workers recently repainted the lighthouse a brilliant white and touched up the red-trimmed window panes.

A lighthouse was first built at Port Hueneme in 1874. A giant Fresnel lens was installed in the 1890s and electrified in 1933, and was transferred to the current lighthouse, built several hundred yards down the beach from the original.

After seeing the lighthouse, those on the tour visited the Channel Islands Marine Resource Institute next door.

Staff members and volunteers at the nonprofit conservation facility answered questions about exhibits of starfish, leopard sharks and other sea creatures and threw pieces of squid into a tank of hungry calico sea bass. The fish are part of a project to increase the species’ population in the Santa Barbara Channel.

Five-year-old Christian Thompson of Port Hueneme had no problems picking a starfish out of a tank with his bare hands, but balked when his grandmother, Val Lameka, offered to give him a boost to look into the shark pool.

“He’s seen one too many ‘Jaws’ movie,” Lameka laughed as Christian cried and squirmed out of her arms.