Onset’s shoreline shimmers on Illumination Night
Amber, left, and Melanie Falardeau, both 7, investigate the light-up swords on offer. Photos by Liam Mayo
Flares stretch out along the Onset shoreline. 
Antero, left, Nicolle and Kinley, 3, Pontes prepare for Illumination Night. 
It was an inaugural Illumination Night for Gail and Barry Leby. 
Flares shimmered in the water across Onset Bay. 
Taliyah Pereira-Brito, 9, tries to re-light a flare that had gone out. 
Joleen Clark, 4, holds her light-up sword. 
The South Coast Brass Band plays into the night. 
A volunteer walks along the row of flares, lighting them one after the other. 
Flares illuminate the shoreline of Onset.
Amber, left, and Melanie Falardeau, both 7, investigate the light-up swords on offer. Photos by Liam Mayo
Flares stretch out along the Onset shoreline.
Antero, left, Nicolle and Kinley, 3, Pontes prepare for Illumination Night.
It was an inaugural Illumination Night for Gail and Barry Leby.
Flares shimmered in the water across Onset Bay.
Taliyah Pereira-Brito, 9, tries to re-light a flare that had gone out.
Joleen Clark, 4, holds her light-up sword.
The South Coast Brass Band plays into the night.
A volunteer walks along the row of flares, lighting them one after the other.
Flares illuminate the shoreline of Onset.
As the day turned to dusk, lights began to pop up along Onset Beach. The darkness was lit by glow-sticks, light-up swords and staffs, glowing bubble guns and even some fireworks across the water.
All those were just in preparation for the main event: The lighting of just over 1,500 crimson flares on the beaches around Onset Bay.
“1,512,” specifiedKat Jones, president of the Onset Bay Association, the organization that hosted the event.
Jones said that between 20 and 30 volunteers are responsible for placing the flares, organized by volunteer Amy Hughes. The Onset Bay Association has been holding the event for around thirty years, though the tradition of lights on the shore goes back even farther to when they were used to welcome sailors home, she said.
“It’s just a calm, cool, chill event” that lets people appreciate Onset, Jones added.
And appreciate it they did.
“Anything to enjoy Onset,” said Nicolle Pontes.
The Pontes family bought a house in the area in 2018, and come down to the beach all the time, she said, adding that the flares help “make up” to the kids for a lack of town fireworks.
It was a first-time experience for Gail and Barry Leby.
“We’re very excited about it,” said Gail.
She said Onset was her “old stomping grounds,” and she considers it “the quintessential little town.” Though she had seen videos of the event from her son, who owns a house on Onset Island, she hadn’t seen it in person.
The Falardeau family had attended the event in previous years. Twins Amber and Melanie “begged us to come again,” said their mother, Amanda.
“There was a bunch of flares lit up,” said Melanie, remembering the previous year. Amber had her eyes on her light-up sword, a purchase which the family had skipped the year before.
Once the flares were lit, the crowd on Onset Beach mingled among them, some taking pictures with the red light as a backdrop, others dancing around the flare-light in circles as if performing some ritual, and yet others just observing the radiant scene.
Taliyah Pereira-Brito, 9, designated herself an on-the-spot volunteer, stepping in to relight one of the flares that had gone out.
While a passing adult had to help her finish the job, Taliyah said she wanted to step in “‘cause a little kid put it out.”
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