From the Editor
Friends of mine saw whales from shore on the Vineyard last summer, but I didn’t. A few years before that, ninety right whales showed up between Aquinnah and Block Island, but I didn’t see those, either. I’ve been lucky enough to see whales off of Cape Cod and California.
Dangerous Waters
On June 18, 1722, a small group of men from Martha’s Vineyard were out on what should have been a short whaling voyage when they saw a terrible sight approaching their sloop.
Built for Blood
On the davits of the venerable Charles W. Morgan is a brand-new killing machine that was handmade at Gannon and Benjamin in Vineyard Haven.
Not Your Average Ahab
Captain William A. Martin of Edgartown was that rarest of things, an African American Whaling Captain. As difficult, dangerous, and sometimes financially unrewarding as whaling was, it still beat slavery by miles. By some estimates thirty percent of the thousands of whalers before the Civil War were minorities. A few even overcame all the odds…
Trouble in the Woods
The wasps are tiny, almost invisibly so, but their vandalism is evident all across the Island.
Bringing It Home
At Studioshop in Oak Bluffs, a mother-daughter design team has a world of ideas.
Wes Craven’s The Birds: Part 2
It’s not widely known yet, but birds are infiltrating the world of humans at levels never before seen. This movement is not driven by preference for our company, but by a perception among birds that few other choices remain. Their habitats gobbled, unable to beat us, they have decided to join us. Literally.
Play Ball!
For more than half a century youth baseball has been one of the rites of spring – and of passage – on the Island.
Reading
If you aren’t already acquainted with Tony Horwitz’s winning brand of travelogue history (Blue Latitudes, One for the Road, etc.), do yourself a favor and head to an Island bookstore. Or save the gas and download the e-book BOOM: Oil, Money, Cowboys, Strippers, and the Energy Rush That Could Change America Forever.
DAW: Spring Birds Return
Hummingbirds are on their way now.Summer catbirds? Any day now!Ospreys land on last year’s poles,As bluebirds flirt with orioles.
How It Works: Building a Drawbridge
The old Lagoon Pond drawbridge had a good run, but after seventy-five years it was more than a little cantankerous.
Pinkletink? Beetlebung? Clam?
Fifty years ago, Anne Hale helped found the Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary on the shores of Sengekontacket Pond in Edgartown. Twenty-six years ago she published Moraine to Marsh, a slender, spiral-bound volume that became a treasured go-to guide to the flora and fauna of the Vineyard. Hale died in 1992, and with the book out…
From Sea to Shining Sound
Lungs tight from kicking up sawdust on a newly cleared trail, I searched my backpack for my inhaler. Weariness was written on my friends’ faces too. A dusty, panting dog lay in front of us, his head turning slowly to drink from a bowl of water. We had been hiking for sixteen miles – a…
The Real Housewives of Martha’s Vineyard
“For a girl or a woman to embark on a long whaling voyage required great fortitude and determination,” wrote Henry Beetle Hough, co-author with Emma Mayhew Whiting of Whaling Wives, published in 1953. Sailing with her whaling-captain husband meant that a wife could avoid a separation that might last as long as five years, but…
Island Classic: Sailor Stripes
The sailor shirt. Breton stripes. La marinière. By any name, this French-inspired classic has – forgive me – earned its stripes, quickly climbing the ranks from standard-issue naval wear to worldwide wardrobe staple.
One Place at a Time: Caroline Tuthill Preserve
When I walked the Caroline Tuthill Preserve earlier this year, what I noticed first was the aroma of the pitch pine forest, a smell that brought me back to my childhood when I used to visit my aunt and uncle who had a home very close to this sanctuary in Edgartown. The trails are narrow…
Notes from the Tackle Room: Lefty’s Deceivers
When I took up saltwater fly-fishing in the late 1970s, I was blessed to have some wonderful mentors on the Vineyard. Legends such as Nelson Bryant, Arthur Sylvia, and Bruce Pratt were my teachers and encouraged me to learn all that I could about this newfound passion. Thus I jumped at an opportunity to travel…
That's My Boat
That’s My Boat: John Thayer
Captain: John Thayer Home Port: Lagoon Pond, Martha’s Vineyard Marina The Name: Kittiwake III. “I do not change the names of boats.” The Boat: Twenty-six-foot bass boat originally built of cedar on oak by Erford Burt at Burt’s Boatyard in 1952. The boatyard is now Martha’s Vineyard Marina, on the Lagoon [formerly Maciel Marine]. The…
The Workshop Gallery
Carousel Horses
About time to round ’em up and herd ’em down to the Bluffs?
The Look
The Look, 1970
Looking good on the south shore.
Oceanography
Oceanography: New Jelly? No Thanks
Last summer, signs on Vineyard beaches warned swimmers about Portuguese man-of-wars, the brightly colored siphonophores that deliver a painful sting. And anyone who has spent much time in the water in the summer is probably familiar with the big, pink jellyfish and the small harmless moon jellies of August. But there is a new gelatinous…
