Little Oscar wins grand prize

This year, the Coconut Grove Grapevine will be turning 10 (on May 8), so occasionally we'll be posting fun stories from the past. This one is from July 5, 2009, the day after our July 4 Coconut Scavenger Hunt, which was a regular thing around here for a few years. We would spend a month or so painting coconuts, real works of art, at coconut painting parties at the Windisch-Hunt Gallery and then on July 4, we would have the wild event on the streets of Coconut Grove.

And the Oscar goes to little Oscar, I mean the Golden Coconut goes to Oscar Thompson. Oscar here to the right, won the grand prize in yesterday's Coconut Scavenger Hunt! Many tried, but he did it! At left, Angie Cruz manged to come in with a few nicely painted coconuts.


The contestants started signing up early at the Mayfair and in front of The Barnacle. About 60 people signed up. At 3:15 promptly, the hunt started and everyone was given the clues in the form of two line poems. Basically the locations needed to be found, more than the actual coconuts, because once you knew the location, you just had to go in and ask for a coconut.


The finish line was fun, everyone started showing up at around 3:30, the hunt ended at 4 pm. The start off was amazing too, all at once, people burst off into the the Center Grove searching in one mad rush.

I had the golden coconut and I told many people at the sign-up points that there was a major clue on the Grapevine, being posted exactly at 3:15, the start time. Many did look on line using their phones and said, "We know that a guy in red has it." That was me, I guess this photoposted was not so clear on their phones, so I guess it made it even more fun.

The prizes were handed out by Felice, Steven and AnnaMaria at the fountain at CocoWalk. Everyone seemed to have a great time and I guess they were pleased that little Oscar won first prize -- a two night stay at the Mutiny (for two), breakfast, lunch and dinner and 100 Grove Bucks to spend at participating merchants. The next prize was a night for two at the DoubleTree hotel and 50 Grove Bucks.

Everyone won at least one Grove Buck, as long as they brought in one coconut or more. The remaining prizes went to the person who had the most coconuts (which ended in a run off, literally, up and down the stairs at CocoWalk) and others were drawn randomly (each coconut was not only painted and decorated, but they were numbered).

Anton Maratos (back left) looks like he had enough. We all did, it was quite an event. So many, worked so hard, preparing the rules and actually the coconuts -- there was a lot of painting done in the past month. And a lot of arguments over rules and procedures, which all ended up working out perfectly in the end.

Related stories:
How the Golden Coconut Was Found
Coconut Hunt bring a lot of excitement to the Grove
We've got a lovely bunch of coconuts
Here are the clues to the Coconut Scavenger Hunt
Hunting coconuts in the rain