From June 2-9, I went on a solo trip to Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard islands in New England. I learned a lot about the islands through bus tours and visits to museums.
Sunday, June 2:
Today I flew to Nantucket. Mom and dad dropped me off at Regan airport in D.C. Flights directly from D.C. to Nantucket aren't that expensive. To fly to Martha's Vineyard was hundreds of more dollars (I'm not sure why- maybe because all of the celebrities go there?) Originally, I really wanted to see Martha's Vineyard, but it was too expensive to fly there, and so I decided to fly to Nantucket and take the ferry over to Martha's Vineyard, thus seeing both islands. Nantucket is a much smaller island than Martha's Vineyard, so I didn't want to spend all of my time on Nantucket. Anyway, the flight to Nantucket was only one and a half hours and there were a lot of empty seats. When I arrived, the weather was perfect. It was sunny almost every day I was there, which is unusual. The island is called "The Grey Lady" for a reason.
Nantucket
When I arrived, I dropped off my luggage at the Martin House Inn, the inn where I was staying the first two days. The inn is right in the Nantucket historic district- close to everything! In downtown Nantucket, everything is located within about a mile radius- grocery store, church, library, ect. The Martin House Inn was built in 1803 by a sea captain for his bride. The doors had that old-fashioned handle and were hard to open and there were creaky, wood-paneled floors. The inn also had a "Widow's Walk" on the roof.
my room- Martin House Inn
View from the Widow's Walk on the roof of the Martin House Inn
Many of the older buildings in town have them. The widows would stand on the small deck on the roof and search for their husbands at sea. Many times, they never returned. The other purpose of the Widow's Walk was to pour a bucket of sand down a burning chimney.
My room at the Inn was under the eaves in the attic, which was why it was cheaper. It was quite hot up there, but with the window AC, it cooled off. The name Nantucket translates to "faraway land," and the island was named by its Native American inhabitants.
After dropping off my luggage, I walked a few blocks to the Whaling Museum. The central attraction is a large skeleton of a sperm whale. The whaling museum is housed in an old candle factory. It contains one of the most important collections in the world of scrimshaw, which is the art of engraving images on ivory such as whale teeth. The Nantucket whalers would carve the images as a way to pass the time during the long time at sea.
I saw a presentation on the whale hunt and a video on the history of Nantucket. From the mid 1700s to the late 1830s, the island was the whaling capital of the world. Many whaling ships left Nantucket and sailed around the world and Nantucket whalers were considered the experts and leaders in sperm whale hunting, a very dangerous endeavor. Sperm whale oil provided energy to the U.S., especially during the industrial revolution. Then the whaling industry disappeared on the island. Petroleum was discovered in Pennsylvania and also a great fire destroyed the Nantucket town. There were also other factors that contributed to the disappearance of whaling on Nantucket, but I cannot remember them.
The most interesting thing about Nantucket is that it was the inspiration for the famous novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Melville visited the island in the 1840s and heard the true story from the first mate of the tragic journey of the Nantucket whale ship called the Essex, which set sail from Nantucket in 1819. The ship was sunk by a large whale, just like in the book.
Nantucket island was formed from a glacier a long time ago and will be taken back by the ocean in about 400 years. Many famous people spent time there. The Atheneum, which is today the Nantucket library, hosted many great orators of the day, including Frederick Douglass and Thoreau.
Monday, June 3:
Today I woke up early and walked to the Brant Point Lighthouse on Nantucket Sound. It was only a few miles from town and I used my GPS on my phone to find it. The lighthouse is so short. It is closed to the public, is operational, and owned by the Coast Guard.
Brant Point Lighthouse, Nantucket
At noon, I went on a bus tour around the island. There are no traffic lights on the island and only one murder in the last 100 years. The island is only 14 miles long. Main Street is still all cobblestone from hundreds of years ago. I kept stumbling walking the sidewalks!
Main Street, Nantucket
The island is not developed and was designated a National Historic Landmark by the NPS in 1966 because of its surviving architecture. There are no hotel chains, starbucks, or mcdonalds. All of the small inns are super expensive per night. On the tour bus I saw the Sankaty lighthouse from a distance.
Sankaty lighthouse
The lighthouse is surrounded by what is called the Moors, because it looks like England. We also passed by what is called the Serengeti because it is a field that looks like Africa. There are large cutouts of animals, and at first I thought the giraffe was real. We also passed by some cranberry bogs because cranberries were grown commercially there. In addition, we passed by the Old Mill, the oldest operating windmill in the U.S. The builder, a local sailor, was inspired by the windmills of Holland.
Old Mill
That afternoon, I walked around town for a few hours.
Tuesday, June 4:
I did a one hour bike rental from "Young' s Bicycle Shop." It's illegal to ride on the sidewalks, but the guy at the shop said I could ride down to the Brant Point Lighthouse on Nantucket Sound through the residential streets without much traffic. I already know how to get there because I had walked there the day before! The bike had a basket on the front where I put my purse. When I arrived, I locked up the bike and walked down to the beach. I saw a large sailboat on the Bay.
In the afternoon, I picked up my ticket to take the ferry to Martha's Vineyard. The docks weren't too far from the inn from where I was staying, so it was super convenient. I got on the ferry for about an hour and ten minute ride. Boy did that ferry go fast! It reminded me of being on Uncle Earnie's speedboat as a kid in Florida. When I got up to use the bathroom, I was falling over. I guess that's why it's called the high-speed ferry.
When I got to Martha's Vineyard, the first thing I noticed was the Flying Horses Carousel in Oak Bluffs, the oldest working carousel in the U.S. Then I called it a night and went to my Airbnb. I was staying in Oak Bluffs, one of Martha's Vineyard's six towns.
Wednesday, June 5
I walked around the Camp Meeting Association, which is also known as the Gingerbread Houses. These are tiny Victorian-style houses. They date back to the early 1800s Methodist camp meetings, religious gatherings for retreats. They originally met in tents, but upgraded to tiny houses. Today, the cottages are all privately owned and there are 315 of them. The property is owned by the Camp Meeting Association, and so the homeowners have to pay property fees. However, they can paint their houses any way they like, and most of them are bright colors. It is so peaceful to walk through them and the weather was perfect. One of them is open to the public and there is a guy in there who will give you a history lesson for$2, which I did. That afternoon I walked around the Oak Bluffs beach/harbor. The Vineyard has buses that go all over the island. At first the system was a little hard to figure out, but by the time I left the island, I knew my way around on the buses, especially getting from the Airbnb into town, which was quite easy.
Gingerbread Cottages, Martha's Vineyard
Thursday, June 6:
Today, I took the bus to Edgartown, a scenic roughly 20-minute ride along the water to another MV town. Edgartown appears to be more ritzy with expensive inns and clothing boutiques and the Edgartown harbor and lighthouse. You can do history walking tours, but I opted out. There was only one public restroom that I saw and nowhere to refill my water bottle, so I only spent a few hours there before I headed back to Oak Bluffs (which has a ton of restrooms and water fountains.) In Edgartown, I saw the outside of the Old Whaling Church, and walked a mile or so to the Edgartown Lighthouse which has water on both sides and is on a strip of beach.
downtown Edgartown
Walk to Edgartown Lighthouse
Friday, June 7:
On my final day, I did a 3-hour bus tour around Martha's Vineyard. The bus driver wasn't too interesting, so I'm not sure it was worth the $40, but the bus did go out to the Aquinnah Cliffs, multi-colored clay cliffs at the edge of the island which hang over the ocean. They were scenic. There is also the Gay Head lighthouse there.
Gay Head lighthouse
Aquinnah Cliffs, Martha's Vineyard
The bus driver did say that MV gets its name from an early settler who named it after his daughter and mother-in-law (martha) as well as the wild grapes that grow around the island (We passed them). We also stopped in the fishing village Menemsha where you can get great clam chowder. Also we passed by the East Chop Lighthouse. There was only one vineyard on the island, but it did not produce any good wine. We drove through the center of the island, which was all wooded, and not scenic. I'm glad I didn't stay in the MV hostel, because it's in the center of the island and not near anything. After the tour, I took the bus to the Alpaca farm, which wasn't great, but you can see the alpacas and hug them if you want to.
Saturday, June 8:
I left MV and headed back on the ferry to Nantucket. When we were almost there, there was a Man Overboard drill, required by the Coast Guard. Then I took an Uber to the Nantucket hostel. The hostel was an amazing location, right on the beach with amazing shells.
Nantucket beach shell
At night, I could hear the waves crashing.
The bathroom had some moths and the shower didn't get warm. The bed was hard and there were flies in the room. But other than that the hostel was great. Only two other women were staying in the female dorm.
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