Lickety-split renovations are a specialty of sorts for Mark Snider.
By Phyllis Meras
Sometimes the arc of the moral universe is long and slow, and sometimes it curves sharply, making up for wasted time. That was the case last month as scattered calls to remove the Confederate battle flag from the South Carolina capitol ignited a nationwide call to expel Confederate symbols from all parks and government buildings.
By Tom Dunlop
Forty years ago Jaws put the Vineyard (masquerading as an island called Amity) and white sharks on the same Hollywood map. The celluloid great white shark that terrorized beachgoers gave sharks a bad rap, and swimmers reason for pause, for years.
By Sara Brown
As the wooden fishing boat slows to a halt, twenty-three rods rest perpendicularly on the red metal railing waiting for the signal. When the motor cuts, the weighted and squid-baited lines drop immediately into the water, finding their way down about fifty feet to the bottom. Tap, tap, tap, the hits come nearly instantly. Within minutes, maybe even seconds, amid shouts and whoops, silver fish dangle from multiple lines.
By Catherine Walthers
I walked into the Portuguese-American Club in Oak Bluffs on a mild Monday evening with my mom in tow and was greeted by a blast of music and a mix of excited twenty-somethings. We were all there for one reason, and one reason only – to learn how to paint. Well, maybe two reasons: we could enjoy some refreshing alcoholic beverages as we channeled our hidden Caravaggio or, in mom’s case, awakened her previously undiscovered inner Dalí.
By Nicole Grace Mercier
It’s not uncommon these days to hear of rare or threatened plants on the Vineyard – think of the broad tinker’s weed (aka wild coffee) that recently worried the Gay Head Light movers, or the orchids that occasionally halt would-be homebuilders. But one of the most important and endangered local plants grows not so much on the Island as beside it.
By Sara Brown
I have an educated thumb. Do you? You have one, too? Then there’s a pair of us – don’t tell! They’d think we were obsolete – you know!
By Kib Bramhall
An ecological crisis may not be what comes to mind when driving along Beach Road from Vineyard Haven to Oak Bluffs, with the harbor on your left and Lagoon Pond on your right and the seagulls wheeling overhead. In the summer, the Lagoon is a place of kayaks, canoes, stand-up paddleboards, and sailing lessons. In the fall, scallopers dot the surface with their dip nets and baskets and wooden peep sights, losing (or finding) themselves in the sparkling expanse.
By Alex Elvin
To those who’ve been here long enough, it is known as “the yellow book,” a definitive history of the steamships and ferries that have sailed to and from the mainland going back to the start of the service, two centuries ago. Written by Paul C.
By Tom Dunlop
It’s springtime, and for right whales, the plankton feeding is easy. A large group of the endangered mammals were spotted via aerial surveys in the waters between Gay Head and Block Island in the late winter and spring. “That’s a really interesting area that’s had relatively little survey effort until recently,” said Philip Hamilton, a research scientist with the New England Aquarium.
By Sara Brown
Spring is an iffy season on the Vineyard. The ocean’s chill delays the reawakening of color and blossom for a seeming eternity while blustery winds keep summer at bay. But something is going on beneath the sea that keeps pulses racing: the spring run of striped bass, which brings these magnificent fish back to our shores from wintering grounds in the Chesapeake and elsewhere.
By Kib Bramhall
