Nantucket: It Truly is a State of Mind

Recently, I took advantage of a special FAM trip to Nantucket sponsored by the Steamship Authority, which offers fast ferry service to the island. The day dawned bright and sunny, but unseasonably cool for spring on Cape Cod and with the threat of afternoon showers. Undaunted, I grabbed my windbreaker and headed down Route 6A, the Old King’s Highway, to pick up my friends Helen and Mary for our date with the 11:00 AM fast ferry.

Nantucket, many say, is a state of mind, and having lived there briefly between college graduation and my first teaching position many years ago, I must concur. There is something about the light, the rustle of leaves against the cobblestones, and the wind that whips the sails in the boat basin that envelopes your soul in a dreamlike reverie. It haunts you when you leave and embraces you when you return, as you undoubtedly will after your first visit.

The name, of Native American origin, means faraway island, and so it is, yet still readily accessible, so that even a daytrip is worthwhile. The trip from Hyannis is a little more than an hour by high-speed ferry and only 15 minutes by air. I particularly enjoy arriving by ferry and seeing the whole town come into view as the vessel rounds the lighthouse at Brant Point and enters the harbor. At approximately 3.5 miles deep and 14 miles wide, the island is smaller than Martha’s Vineyard and just a bit larger than Manhattan. More than 12,000 acres (almost 40 percent of the island) are protected from development, which is a fact that is much appreciated by the nearly 7,000 year-round inhabitants. When the “summer folk” arrive after Memorial Day the population swells to more than 50,000.

It was smooth sailing across the Atlantic to Nantucket Town, where we were greeted by Chester Barrett, a native islander with a gift for gab. Chester is a septuagenarian character with a New England twang and a fondness for his ancestral home that is infectious. He took us around the island in his comfortable 30-passenger tour bus and regaled us with humorous anecdotes about windmills, cranberry bogs, and whaling captains in a delightful 90-minute circumnavigation of the “Gray Lady”, Nantucket’s nickname.

After our tour, we walked the cobbled streets of downtown Nantucket, admiring the storefronts and serene nature of this fabled island situated just 30 miles offshore. A few hardy local proprietors were readying their shops in anticipation of the hustle bustle that the upcoming “season” will bring.

Nantucket is the only place in the United States that is a town, a county, and an island, and in its entirety, both a State Historic District and a National Historic Landmark. It is a place where nearly half the land is held in conservation, and there are no stoplights, shopping malls, or fast-food franchises. Instead, there are cobblestoned streets and brick

walkways where locals stop to chat and everyone seems to know your name. It doesn’t take long to feel at home here.

Sadly, our day came to an end much as it began, with a trip aboard the MV Iyanough.  But, I am hopeful as the ferry rounds Brant Point on the return to “America”, as Chester referred to the land across the sound. Hopeful that the daffodils waving their lovely heads signal the advent of spring; that the contentment I feel from a day well spent will endure; and that Nantucket will be waiting for me whenever I am able to return.