By Barbara Clark, contributing writer

Red and green flags will fly, multi-hued skirts will billow as dancers turn, and accordions and guitars will accompany processions and events as the 23rd annual Provincetown Portuguese Festival fills the weekend around town.

Most festival events are free. Full schedule and information: www.provincetownportuguesefestival.com.

Friday, June 28

Portuguese Soup Tasting: noon to 3 p.m., Bas Relief, 106 Bradford St.

Portuguese Writers & Poets Reading: 2 to 4 p.m., Harbor Lounge, 359 Commercial St.

Homecoming Get-Together: 9 p.m. to 1 a.m., Bubalas By the Bay, 183 Commercial St.

Saturday, June 29

Portuguese Dancers and Live Entertainment: 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., Portuguese Square, Ryder Street

Portuguese Festival Parade: 3 to 5 p.m., Commercial Street, Provincetown

Fado Concert: 7:30 to 9:30 p.m., Provincetown Town Hall

Dancing to Live Samba Music: 9 p.m. to 12:30 a.m., Portuguese Square, Ryder Street

Sunday, June 30

Fishermen’s Mass: 10:30 to 11:30 a.m., St. Peter the Apostle Church, 11 Prince St.

Portuguese Dancers: 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Portuguese Square, Ryder Street

Procession and Blessing of the Fleet: begins at noon, St. Peter the Apostle Church to MacMillan Pier, Commercial Street

Portuguese Music and Dancers: 1 to 3 p.m., MacMillan Pier

Provincetown native and event organizer Don Murphy works with a team of a dozen people to plan the multi-layered event that draws participants and visitors from throughout New England. If you total up the ages of the longtime volunteers who work on the event, Murphy says, “You have 800 years of Provincetown roots driving this festival.”

With added weekend helpers, he says, there will be as many as 100 volunteers at work.

Highlights of the festival include Portuguese food, music and dance, punctuated by the annual parade. The culminating event is the historic Blessing of the Fleet at MacMillan Pier, in its 72nd year and known to most longtime participants simply as “The Blessing,” according to Murphy.

The sounds of the festival will include traditional Portuguese folk music, or fado; salsa beats featured at the community dance; a jug band; and accordion and guitar for Portugal’s regional music. Colorful sights will include Portuguese folk dancers who come from many parts of New England to perform the traditional dances that bring to life the Portuguese community’s heritage and customs.

The dancers’ ages? “How about from 8 to 80?” says Murphy. Many who started dancing 20 years ago, he adds, are still performing and teaching other dancers today.

“And they practice all winter,” he says.

During Saturday’s parade, says Murphy, one problem is keeping the procession moving and in order because the dancers often are so “motivated by their enthusiasm” that they respond to spectators’ cheers by just stopping where they are to continue a dance for the crowd. He says organizers try to remind the performers, “‘No, no, no – you can’t stop here!’ to try and keep the parade moving.”

The parade, he adds, is “like a big puzzle. I have to make sure all the pieces fit.”

Sunday’s Blessing of the Fleet follows a Mass at Provincetown’s St. Peter the Apostle Church. The procession from church to pier will include more than 50 banners bearing the names of long-gone fishing vessels, carried by families of the many sailors who have gone to sea as part of the commercial fishing fleet that dates back to the 19th century. For many, that procession is “a very emotional part” of the weekend, Murphy adds.

The church’s statue of St. Peter, patron saint of fishermen, will be carried to the wharf by processioners, too. Boats then will line up at the pier, flags and pennants flying, as Bishop Edgar DaCunha leans out over the water from a special platform to bless each boat as it passes by.

Although the fishing fleet is now much smaller, the festival itself continues to gather momentum and enthusiasm each year, according to Murphy.

What is now a four-day festival started 23 years ago in part, he says, because the “fishing fleet was starting to diminish” in numbers due to changes in the industry. Families left the area to pursue other occupations, and there were fewer boats in the Blessing. Several residents got together to organize the new event as a way to revive the spirit of the town’s Portuguese heritage and entice people to town for a big weekend.

Changes took place gradually, as recreational boaters, even rowboats and kayakers, began to join the annual blessing. Town participation and enthusiasm returned, with a growing number of visitors arriving for the festivities. The event just “turned the corner so well,” Murphy says.