Martha’s Vineyard, MA

Day 2

We’re spending four nights on Martha’s Vineyard at the campground. After our 8-consecutive-day riding record, and with fairly-extensive exploratory rides planned for the next two days, this day was a complete rest day, where we didn’t leave the campground. Plus, it was a bit rainy in the afternoon, and then much moreso overnight. The perfect raked sandy surface turned into a pockmarked battlefield, with drop-sized water-grenades exploding the sand upward all over the lower six inches of our tent, and perhaps even splashing high enough to get over the waterproof lower section of the inner tent fabric. At least that’s the best explanation I could come up with after Rett noticed in the morning that a significant amount of water had gathered under our sleeping pad. The all-night showers meant that our panniers also got wetter than usual (our rain covers are far from perfect), and the cool, cloudy conditions over the next days made it difficult to dry them out (also our desire to ride around the island unloaded left the damp tent as the only place to store our damp bags, which certainly didn’t help either party).

Day 3

28.2 mi / 10.7 mph / 560 ft. climbing
Home: Martha’s Vineyard Family Campground

Today we would explore the eastern, more-populated part of the island on our unloaded bikes. First stop was Edgartown, the most back-in-time of the island’s three population centers. The one-time whaling center still has all the houses with front doors facing each other a mere 12 to 15 feet apart across the narrow streets. Trying to get cars in and out of the density is a bit of a nightmare (even in this shoulder-season!), so that’s an area where bikes are a big advantage.

It’s 100% autumn at Morning Glory Farm!

Rett has to take to the street where the sidewalk ended for this giant old tree.

The narrow streets of Edgartown.

Chappaquiddick Island is just a short walk from the center of Edgartown, but the connection is underwater, so you need to take a ferry if you don’t want to get wet (actually the “island” is (currently) connected to the rest of Martha’s Vineyard by a stretch of thin beach on the south end, but the ferry is the only reasonable connection to the road network).

The small barge-ferries take three vehicles at a time, and there was a line of about ten when we arrived. But, in another bike-advantage on these islands, we (and any pedestrians) get a separate line, so we easily fit on the next boat with no wait. And we were proud to not be part of the lame-os who simply bought their way into this bike-advantage club by renting bikes when they arrived at Martha’s Vineyard. We brought our own with us and so come by the advantages naturally!

One of the two “Chappy Ferries”. We’re on the other one, passing in the middle of the channel as the barges swap docks.

The ferry fits 3 vehicles at a time, but if they’re longer vehicles, it’s a real squeeze!

Now on Chappaquiddick, we can see the Edgartown Harbor Light (on the “mainland”) for the first time.

Normally there is a caravan of cars that we need to wait out when exiting a ferry, but with only three belching forth on every ferry run, the roads on this island off an island are as quiet as you’d expect. Especially when we turned off onto a sand/dirt road to make a loop route.

Not a lot happening on Chappaquiddick!

When you Google “Chappaquiddick”, the first result is the Wikipedia page for “The Chappaquiddick Incident”, the second is for the 2017 movie about The Incident, and finally at number three comes the Wikipedia entry about the island itself. So yeah, apparently it’s not just me who thinks “Ted Kennedy” when he hears the word “Chappaquiddick”. Anyway, I read the Wikipedia entry before we got here (the one about The Incident, not the Island), and was like “yeah, that sounds bad”. But physically being here, riding around the whole island and getting a geographical understanding of the distance and direction that separates the bridge where the car went into the water from the “mainland” to which Kennedy ferried, makes the story seem far worse. Anyway, how quaint that in the 70s, merely contributing to the death of a young female employee could bring an end to presidential ambitions!

Rett looking for Mary Jo Kopechne with at least twice the diligence of Ted Kennedy. (Too soon…?!? Also, the water wasn’t even waist-deep…)

The east beach of Chappaquiddick.

Crab!

We’ve finally made it to a true bit of Atlantic Coast!

Looping back from the notorious bridge (and the road that immediately dissolves to a beach after it), we stopped at Mytoi Japanese Garden. It was a nice quiet way to spend 30 minutes, but I feel like the ferryman must subsidize it, because otherwise there would be no other “tourist attractions” inspiring tourists to pay for a trip to the island. Or at least it gives “Ted Kennedy Bridge” tourists plausible deniability.

Butterfly creating a scene at Mytoi Japanese Garden.

Classic Japanese garden scene.

A vertebra as big as Rett! From a right whale on East Beach in 2017.

Google Lens helped later identify this 190-foot superyacht anchored off Chappaquiddick as belonging to Rupert Murdoch’s ex-wife. It was originally named “Lady Ghislaine”, for, yes…that Ghislaine. Whose father drowned/suicided/was murdered off its deck. Sweet Davy Jones, it’s a boat more-cursed than The Black Pearl! (the giant American flag is actually the sail of a sailboat floating by, not sure the commentary is ironic or not, but it definitely adds to the image!)

Back on the “mainland”, we headed north toward Oak Bluffs, and on the way accomplished more “Jaws” tourism.

Riding across “The Jaws Bridge”. To the right, the open ocean, where you’ll get eaten by a shark. To left, “the pond”, the place where the sensible police chief tells his son to swim…and where you’ll also get eaten by a shark.

Oh my god, I think those two dark triangles near the boat on the right are the dorsal fins of great white sharks swimming to attack the boat! Or, maybe they’re kayakers. But, probably sharks.

I didn’t really know much about Martha’s Vineyard before we came here; to this day I need to consciously remind myself that the idea I got in my head as a pre-teen is incorrect, and the island in fact has nothing to with Martha Stewart. My fresher knowledge begins and ends with the fact that it’s the place where Alan Dershowitz is no longer invited to dinner parties. So that means I definitely didn’t know about the “gingerbread cottages” of Oak Bluffs, but they might be the best part of the island!

On the “outside”, it started with big colorful Victorians facing an open green and the water. But behind them came less-grand versions of the same, and behind those, the true “gingerbread cottages” of the Methodist “campground”. We walked our bikes up and down almost all of the mostly non-vehicle paths where these so-cute-you-want-to-pinch-them houses nestle together, and Rett wished we had hours to spend looking at every single one, but unfortunately the day was getting late.

Some of the grand mansions on the way into Oak Bluffs.

I haven’t looked these up on Zillow, but I bet they aren’t cheap!

The scale gets a little bit smaller on some nearby streets. The “church windows” seem to be a popular design element.

The little upper balconies are another commonality.

Now in the “campground” proper, where the houses have shrunk to nearly toy size. It was once tents that stood here for religious gatherings, and it still has echoes of a campground.

A rare example of a car-free, detached-house neighborhood; it feels pretty magical!

It nearly feels like a Renaissance Faire village.

We got a too-expensive dinner in the center of Oak Bluffs, which is the nightlife center of the island, and followed it with some giant ice cream cones that we took on a sunset pier-and-harbor walk. We completed our loop with a fun 5-miles-in-the-dark ride back to Vineyard Haven and up to the actual campground…and our still-damp tent.

Sunset at Oak Bluffs, Martha’s Vineyard.