Oak Bluffs

Our last place we visited was Oak Bluffs.  The town is absolutely wonderful in a quirkish sort of way.  It was the home to a summer camp for Methodist with tent revivals all summer long.  The participant families tents all looked the same so they differentiated them by hanging colorful and uniquely knotted ropes from the tents to tell one from another.  As the camp became more permanent and houses replaced the tents, they wanted to keep the tradition of uniquely identifying their houses so they turned to intricately carved gingerbread "lace" to decorate their eaves and porches.  Many of the houses and shops outside the campgrounds adopted the colorful motifs.  Of all the places on Martha's Vineyard, Oak Bluffs was my favorite and David sweetly tolerated my gawking.

The open air church is from 1879.  

The structure is iron arches with two rows of stained glass windows around the top.

The most intricate of the gingerbread patterns we saw.

Bright colors were everywhere.

A row of cottages.

All shades of blue with the gingerbread standing out in white.

One of the mansions on the circular drive around the city park.  They all
face the ocean.

The park and it's bandstand are popular spots for tourists and
residents of the island.

These are definitely not new houses!

The all-weather church for the campgrounds.

The mansions abound around the circle.  For the most part, they
were all well maintained and beautifully landscaped.

Gorgeous colors!

The oldest continuously running platform carousel in the USA, the
Flying Horses.  The kids all seemed to love grabbing for the brass rings..
It was moved from Coney Island in 1884.

One of the shops with gingerbread trim.

Lobster pots on the wharf.

This stunning mansion has a placard that states it was burned in
2000 but fully restored by 2004.  What an effort for sure.

The side of the same house.

Shopping district in Oak Bluffs.

Waterfront shopping area.

This is an octagonal church.  I bet the acoustics are great.

One of the houses had these panels all along the porch.  The inside
of the cutouts is a pale green.  I can't imagine how tedious it was to paint
that level of detail over 25 times.

Oak Bluffs is a very crowded harbor and it was the middle of the week!

Edgartown

The next town we visited was Edgartown.  It was an interesting ride from one end of the island to the other.  We passed through the ancestral lands of the Wampanoag tribe.  Riding the bus was definitely a good thing not only because of the weather but the distance.  It is over 20 miles from one end to the other.  As mentioned previously, Edgartown was the first prosperous town on Martha's Vineyard due to the whaling industry.  It is still the most hopping town on the island with your choice of places to eat, shop or play. 

There are so many hotels and inns in Edgartown and they go out of their
way to be quaint and distinctive.  This path was between a complex
of rental cottages.

Shopping area of town.

Long row of similar houses along the waterfront.

This is apparently how you move a house.  Run huge ibeams through the house
and load it only a rolling cart.

This house is from the late 18th century and has been relocated. 
What a monumental job.

The old Seaman's Church.  Many of the historic old buildings are now
owned and maintained by the Martha's Vineyard Heritage Trust.

This is the oldest Pagoda tree in the USA.  It was brought back
from the orient by a sea captain in a pot back in 1833.

Pretty pocket parks dot the town.

A gorgeous view of the harbor.

We've never seen rental dinghies like this before.  They were outfitted
for fishing.

These were such uniquely shaped shutters on this old house.

The gardens next to another old house.  The gazebo looks like a perfect
place to relax and listen to the fountain splash into the center pond.

This is the Vincent house, the oldest unaltered house on the island
dating back to the 1670s.

On the path to our next destination.

Martha's Vineyard- Vineyard Haven and Down Island

A short hop from Wood's Hole is Martha's Vineyard.  A super popular spot with ferries coming from all directions to 3 of the island's harbors.  We were lucky enough to snag an anchoring spot in the Lagoon Pond.  It was a bit longer ride in the dinghy to the dock but it kept us out of the way of the wakes from all the boat traffic. The island is old and historic.  What, you were expecting something else from a spot in New England?  The island of Nantucket, famous for its whaling, is a short distance away.  Some of Martha's Vineyard sea captains got rich being guides through the treacherous Wood's Hole cut and other were whalers.  Martha's Vineyard is large enough to have very distinctly different areas.  Edgartown is home to many of the old sailing industry due to it's location nearest to Nantucket.  One lady explained that for pilots, the first one to the incoming ship got the business so being in a position to see the boats coming over the horizon was a plus.  Another town is Oak Bluff.  It's claim to fame is the unique cottages around the old Methodist camp church.  Vineyard Haven has the largest harbor and is more of a working class town.  Lots of tourist shops to be sure, but also good facilities for boat repairs.  The rest of the island is referred to as Down Island.  The movie Jaws was filmed in spots around the island but most of those you'll recognize are in Menemsha.  Sadly, we didn't make it there due to weather.  It was rainy most of the time so we bought a 3 day bus pass to get around.  We were only able to take advantage of the bus for 2 days but we got our money's worth in those 2 days. Again, we're grateful that we saw as much as we did.

This is quite a collection of glass bottles and plates.  The downstairs windows
were just as decorated but I wanted the detail of the close-up picture.

The Grange in the small hamlet of West Tisbury.  The day we visited
the World Market was going on.

The bus terminal in Vineyard Haven is adjacent to the ferry terminal.
It was constantly busy since the buses run from about 6am to 1am.

This is my kind of yard.  Just enough lawn to walk from one bed to the next.

One of the many large homes on one street in Vineyard Haven.

 

We are always fascinated by the stone buildings we see.  It has to be
so much harder to build with stone than regular sized bricks.

The town hall of West. Tisbury.

This is such a unique sail plan with the shapes and location.

The main street of  Vineyard Haven.

Looking the other direction.

Typical buildings in town.

The William Daggett house, He was prosperous enough to not only
build a fine mansion but the street its on is named after him, William St.

Wood's Hole

From Cuttyhunk we sailed up to a place we have wanted to visit for about 40 years, Wood's Hole Oceanographic Institute.  We both love documentaries and many of the ocean based ones are shot with equipment from WHOI and the science is usually from the same school. We have donated to them and MOTE Marine over the years believing that the more we know about the largest part of our planet the better.  Staying on a mooring in Wood's Hole itself was astronomically (by our standards) priced so we took a mooring in Quissett Harbor a bit north of there.  Still pricey but worth the visit to Wood's Hole.  We saw the bus pulling away from the stop 3 blocks away and didn't want to wait the hour it would take for the next one so we walked the 2 or so miles.  We made it just in time to join the walking tour of the campus.  This was the best part, hands down.  We were allowed into many of the buildings and areas that are usually off-limits to visitors.  We also visited the aquarium and a few other spots before catching the bus back.  If time wasn't running short, we could easily have spent several days there visiting the entire town and the adjoining research center.  As it was, we are grateful that we were able to do as much as we did.  For more information, check out: https://www.whoi.edu/

Quissett harbor is full of boats on moorings.  The dinghy dock was the
most crowded one we've ever seen since there is no launch service for the
mooring field.

This road was very busy and at many stretches had no shoulder at all.
We really wanted to get to WHOI!

Part of the stretch of water considered the most treacherous in New England
because of the swift currents and side currents running through the space
between the cape and the next island.

The lagoon was calm but crowded.  Those buildings in the background are
part of the campuses.

The original building on the campus.  It now encompasses quite a few buildings
in Wood's Hole township and an auxiliary campus in Quissett.

A cuet house on the way to Wood's Hole.

You can't take pictures on most of the campus but this was allowed.
This is our tour guide, Tom and King Neptune.  The sculpture was a
gift from a graduating class to their professor.  The professor's wife thought
it would look much better on campus than her front yard.

Slack tide was the point we were looking at the make the passage
through the cut.  Happily we found it.

On another day, you can see how the buoys lean in the current.

A tall ship flying most of her sails.

This is an adjoining research facility.  WHOI specializes in studying
the oceans and their depths, MBL specializes in studying the animal life.

These dishes are from our first big boat, the Mary G.  We bought the
boat in 1988 and the rubber ring has lasted all this time.  First time we've had
to reattach.  That is a really good set of boat dinnerware!