Chaplain Paul Underhay officiates at the wedding of
Diana Estep and Eduardo Jacome before moonrise. Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
By Ron Hayes
The groom was a little early. The moon was a little late.
At 6:15 p.m. on the last Saturday in September, Eduardo Jacome stood on the beach at Ocean Inlet Park, nervously smoothing his black tuxedo, tugging his red vest, eying the flowered bower by the water’s edge.
“A harvest moon?” he muttered, understandably distracted. “No, we didn’t know about a harvest moon.”
There are moons, and there are full moons, and then there is the harvest moon. For three days, starting Sept. 29, a fat, strikingly orange moon started climbing the eastern sky even before the last golden puddles of sunset had left the clouds. The full moon nearest the autumn equinox — Sept. 22 this year — is called the harvest moon because, tradition claims, its bright orange light let farmers harvest their crops well past dusk.
Meanwhile, across A1A in the marina parking lot, Diana Estep stood by a van, patiently holding a bouquet of roses while fluttering bridesmaids adjusted her white satin gown.
“A harvest moon?” she muttered, understandably distracted. “No, I didn’t know about that. I wanted to be married on the beach because we spread my mother’s ashes from the pier here six years ago …”
By 6:30, the couple were standing beneath the bower, surrounded by a dozen friends while Chaplain Paul Overhay of Lake Worth’s Church of the Nazarene read the brief wedding service.
Anglers fish from the jetty as a harvest moon rises over Ocean Inlet Park.
But still no moon.
And then, just after 6:45, as the wedding photographers scurried about to capture their first kiss as husband and wife — there! Big and round and wafer-thin, visible now above the low clouds on the horizon, a truly perfect moon to be married by.
Hang a harvest moon over the inlet, and you’ll find almost as many cameras here as fishing poles.
Not far from the happy couple, Stormy and Sebastian Brigandi watched from canvas beach chairs, and when the moon had escaped the clouds, she aimed her iPhone.
“Oh, sure, we knew it was a full moon tonight,” she said, snapping away.
The Brigandis live well west, off Lawrence Road, but drive to this beach almost every evening to spend an hour or two.
“I take pictures on my iPhone,” she said, still snapping away, “then post them to Facebook.” She laughed. “Especially in the wintertime, to make the family up in New Jersey jealous.”
Later the sky is dark and the moon high over the south pier, where Bennett Brihn has been fishing, more or less nonstop, since Thursday.
Bennett Brihn of Davie fishes at Ocean Inlet Park.
“Oh, that’s beautiful. Excellent!” he says, taking in the sky as he tugs a crevalle jack from his hook. This is his first trip back to this pier since moving to Davie four years ago, and he’s been lucky. About 150 jack, five or six bluefish, one mackerel, a few snapper, which unfortunately were short of the 10 inches legally required for keeping.
“The fishing up here’s great,” he says. “Way better than down south. And I don’t even eat fish. I just like catching them. I like cheeseburgers.”
He baits his hook and casts again.
“When I find a fish that tastes like a cheeseburger, I’ll eat fish.”
All around him, the night is being punctured with momentary flashes of light, from iPhones and tiny digital cameras.
While the fisherman beside her at the rail tries to catch fish, Sylvia Wood catches the harvest moon with her Canon.
“Of course I knew it’s the full moon,” she said. “This is the October moon, my birthday month moon. I’m going to take this picture home and put it on my computer.”
The moon was high overhead now. Wood aimed once more.
“I grew up in the ’70s,” she said, “I’m a cosmic kind of girl.” And snapped another picture.
And if you missed this harvest moon, don’t worry. On Oct. 29, the hunter’s moon will rise.
Stormy and Sebastian Brigandi of Boynton Beach drive
to the beach to spend an hour or two almost each evening.
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