The Backyard Tourist gets vocal...
By Mark Shaffer

It’s a breezy Sunday afternoon in May and I’m hunched over a microphone in a recording studio in the spectacular new St. Helena public library pretending to be someone else. I’m doing my best to channel a young soldier named Will Bedford. The year is 1898 and like thousands of his peers, young Mr. Bedford’s enlisted in the aftermath of the destruction of the U.S.S. Maine, swept up in the nation’s battle cry, “To hell with Spain! Remember the Maine!”

Story & Photos by Mark Shaffer

Water Festival historians should make special note of Saturday July 26th as the day the Dragons laid claim to the most exciting, emotional and vivid daylight event of the festival.

While Dragon Boat Race Day debuted last year, the 2014 edition was bigger, better and louder in every way, offering the crowds along the seawall a full day of action, fun, thrills, spectacle and more than a few tears. By day's end there was no doubt that 2015 will continue the trend as the Dragon Boaters continue to raise money for local cancer patients and survivors.