Bring extra towels: At Tybee Beach Bum Parade, water hits from all sides
TYBEE ISLAND ― The dripping wet fringes of the pava straw hat hung limp over Frank Cunnane’s eyes like a wedding veil, no longer able to point to the sky. Getting hit in the face with a stream of water over and over again will do that.
Cunnane didn’t mourn the sad state of his headgear, though. After all, he gave as good as he got.
Cunnane was among thousands of squirt-gun-toting locals who lined 3 miles of this seaside town’s streets Friday for the Tybee Beach Bum Parade, an annual mobile water fight going back decades where spectators battle float riders.
And with each passing float, Cunnane took his best shot.
“This is a town that loves a parade, and this is the best one,” he said as he drew water for his super soaker pistol from among three large trash cans in front of Doc’s Bar, a Tybee landmark. “It’s all about the locals. And I love giving it to my neighbors.”
Tybee has a reputation for throwing a parade at any opportunity. The Georgia barrier island, population 3,200, puts on Mardi Gras in the spring and a Pirate Fest in the fall to spur tourism in the offseason. There also are marches to mark Martin Luther King Jr. Day, St. Patrick’s Day (although a few days early out of respect for neighboring Savannah’s extravaganza) and Independence Day. Then there’s a lighted bicycle parade to kick off the Christmas holidays.
Yet Beach Bum is better because it is … wetter.
So wet that Tybee might as well post a familiar theme park warning — “You will get wet on this ride” — at the city limits on Beach Bum Parade day. Everyone’s packing and eager to do some wet work, and there’s no such thing as a dry run. It’s a BYOT (bring your own towel) situation.
So it goes on the launch of what’s known as the “last locals weekend.” Next weekend is Memorial Day, when beach season opens and tourists fill every restaurant table at meal time, every parking spot “down front” in the island’s small central business district and every prime sunbathing spot on the sand.
The saving grace? Tybee has become such a family vacation destination that even on summer holiday weekends the happy-hour barstools remain the domain of locals.
Credit — or blame — some of those afternoon barflies for the water works. The first Beach Bum Parade, staged in 1987, was a homecoming march for a local softball team, the Beach Bums. Led by a pots-and-pans band and a stilt walker dressed as Uncle Sam, the only thing wet about the inaugural event were the beverages toted by the walking participants.
The next year, though, the regulars in the bars along the parade route strapped up — with water balloons. With many of the players choosing to ride in a wagon rather than walk, they were easy targets. And they returned fire with recycled balloons that didn’t burst on the first throw.
From there, a tradition was born.
Jack Boylston put together the softball team and has carried the title of HBIC, or Head Bum in Charge, throughout the parade’s history. Now 77, he revels in Beach Bum’s origins and evolution. He formed the team using the motto, “We want to play real bad … and we will.”
The team hung up its spikes after just a few seasons, although it re-forms from time to time to play charity games. Only six of the original team members are still around — 64 have died and are honored on a plaque that hangs in Tybee City Hall — but the moniker Beach Bums is now shared by all Tybee residents. Beach Bum Friday is a holiday.
“The best parties are those where you don’t send out invitations,” Boylston said. “That’s what this has been.”
The 2026 edition drew its usual crowd of young and old, raincoats and bikinis, marksmen and hip-shooters. Water balloons, ice and pressure washers are prohibited because of safety concerns, but squirt guns of all makes and sizes are encouraged. Garden hoses snake from homes along the route to supply buckets along the curb.
And the floats, representing nearly every business on the island from Tybee Surf Lessons to Huc-a-poos Bites and Booze, included boats on tow-behind trailers and high-sided dump trucks where assailants could take cover between squirts.
The super-est soaker was the Savannah Parrotheads float, where the riders were shielded from the crowds by shower curtains with holes cut just big enough to return fire.
The parade wrapped at dusk, and as temperatures dropped on what was a perfect Beach Bum day — 75 degrees and sunny — the legions of bums headed for home or, in many cases, a late happy hour.
“This,” said Cunnane, standing at the end of Doc’s Bar, cocktail in hand, “is Tybee.”
About the Author
Adam Van Brimmer is a journalist who covers politics and Coastal Georgia news for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
