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Having been made so welcome on Martha’s Vineyard it was hard to leave but we wanted to see Woods Hole and Nantucket before heading west to Newport, RI. On Sunday morning (Oct 12^th), the whole of Annie’s clan came to see our boat in Vineyard Haven and waved goodbye as we set off for Woods Hole with Doria and Dwight. The wind was light so our sailing was on a rather haphazard route but we arrived in time for the 1 pm opening of the telescopic pedestrian bridge that separated the main harbor from the tiny but well protected, Eel Pond. The road bridge was being replaced but it is still a very narrow channel into the Pond which is well-filled with moored boats. The lack of wind was a positive advantage here as Randall carefully maneuvered us into our marina slip. Eel Pond is surrounded by buildings of three marine research institutions, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the Marine Biological Laboratory, and the National Marine Fisheries Service. Even outside the busy summer season, the small town has the feel of a university campus as it is so dominated by the research laboratories. Doria had worked in some of these labs and so could give us a very interesting tour of the town. We also looked around her parents’ lovely summer house which had belonged to her grand-parents and where she had spent many of her childhood summers. Like Annie, she positively glowed with fondness for the area.

The following day, we left Doria and Dwight to return to Boston and Florida while we cruised out to learn about the whaling history of Nantucket Island…or so we thought. Nantucket Island is east of Martha’s Vineyard and south of the eastern edge of Cape Cod, with the main town of Nantucket on its northern shore. By 1700, European and native islanders had already begin pursuing whales in long boats from the shore and this industry expanded in the 19^th Century to create vast wealth that is reflected in many of the large and elegant houses. But the whaling industry collapsed at the end of the 19^th century as the recovery of petroleum products became more efficient. This decline was not a moment too soon for some species of whale. And although Nantucket may have lost its major industry, the wealth of the island has been maintained by the inflow of money from the mainland via affluent summer residents, yachtsmen, and tourists.

This much we had learned from our cruising guide but our mission to add more details to this history was thwarted. We arrived at the Nantucket Whaling Museum at 4 pm allowing us an hour before their usual closing time, only to find that they had closed an hour early for a special event. Even more irritating was that this Monday (Columbus Day a federal holiday) was the last day of summer hours and the museum would not be open again until Thursday…too late to be any use to us.

Instead we found a pub for a pre-dinner drink and the following morning walked around the town admiring the buildings. A few of the streets have their original cobblestones and brick sidewalks. With the autumnal street trees and handsome houses the overall effect was very picturesque, especially as the place wass not packed with tourists. In fact, the whole area, especially in many of the affluent residential areas, has been so well maintained in the New England, whaling-era style of wood-shingle-sided houses with white and grey trim, that there is a slightly theme-park-like perfection about it. If we had stayed longer, it would have been worth riding our bicycles around more of the island to see if this atmosphere is island-wide or just around the main town. It had some similarity to Edgartown on Martha’s Vineyard but otherwise our experiences of the two islands were quite different. We looked forward to going ashore at Martha’s Vineyard again…