There are some things you don’t realize you’ve stopped seeing until you see them again. For me, this summer, it was lightning bugs.
Nantucket Voices
Dog Days of Summer
Ah yes, the dog days of summer. The fishing has been, well, tough. My friend and boat charter captain Corey Gammon says that the fishing has been “opportunistic.” We spoke recently, and Corey told me, “Yesterday we did nothing at Great Point, and today it just went off. Fish everywhere!” Yes, Corey is right. I’ve had good days and bad days and going half-mad days, to borrow a lyric from the late, great Jimmy Buffett. My best day of the past week was when I had to cancel my charter clients due to extreme wind and rain. I went out and fished into that wind on an empty beach and caught some big, fat bluefish. You can’t catch ‘em from the couch, right?
The Island You Can’t Post
The little sign in John Sylvia’s Four Winds Craft Guild accomplished something almost too perfect to make up. It became one of the most photographed things on Nantucket.
A Carpenter’s Definition of Wealth
I have worked inside some extraordinarily expensive homes.
Homes with wine cellars larger than my first apartment. Homes with hidden doors, imported marble shipped across oceans, and refrigerators sophisticated enough to probably qualify for voting rights in certain states. I’ve stood in kitchens worth more than entire neighborhoods I’ve lived in while in college in Arizona.
Building Summer
There comes a moment every July when Nantucket settles into itself. The fireworks have faded from Jetties Beach, the last parade chairs have disappeared from Main Street, and another Independence Day has become part of the island’s memory. Families unpack their suitcases, restaurants find their rhythm, gardens burst into bloom, and the island seems to slip effortlessly into the busiest weeks of the year.
A 4th Full of Memories
I never needed an alarm clock on the Fourth of July. I was always awake before anyone had to tell me it was time: the excitement had a way of beating the sunrise. Before the coffee was brewed or breakfast was finished, I was already figuring out which friends to call. One by one we’d meet on our bikes, towels draped over our handlebars, pockets full of nothing, and an entire island ahead of us.
Why Nobody Rushes a Nantucket Sunset
For most of the day, Nantucket moves surprisingly fast. Contractors race between job sites, restaurant staff hustle through double shifts, and delivery trucks bounce down cobblestone streets. Cyclists pedal furiously toward beaches, brunch reservations, and ferry departures, while tourists clutch maps, trying to squeeze every possible experience into a single week they spent eleven months looking forward to. Summer arrives with a kind of beautiful urgency. Everybody is headed somewhere.
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