Sometimes, in the middle of a summer night, sea creatures come up and offer themselves to the shore in the bay near Mobile, Alabama. It doesn't happen often, and it's impossible to predict until just before it happens. When it does, local residents call their friends to wake them up, and grab buckets and wheelbarrows to haul away all the fish, crabs, and shrimp available for the taking. They call this event the "jubilee," and it only happens in two places in the world- a bay in Japan and along a 15-mile stretch of Mobile Bay. Old timers recall jubilees in which they gathered enough seafood to feed a family for a year. They also recall what it's like to see their neighbors in their sleepwear.
The Mobile Bay Jubilee is not a legend, nor is it magic. It's a rare natural phenomenon that occurs due to a precise alignment of ocean conditions, weather, tides, and the geography of the bay. Read an explanation of how it happens, and the local traditions that have grown around the Mobile Bay Jubilee at Atlas Obscura. Or you can listen to it in podcast form.
Newest 2 Comments