A view of the water from Menemsha, a fishing village on Martha's Vineyard that Eagle columnist Ruth Bass recently visited on vacation. Two swans are swimming in the pond in West Tisbury, kids still reach for the brass ring at Flying Horses in Oak Bluffs, the harbor at the village of Menemsha is crowded with well-worn lobster boats and ringed with small, gray-shingled houses where fishermen live. And the 19th-century gingerbread houses still circle the tabernacle at Trinity Park.
Fifty-something years ago when our beach destination was Martha’s Vineyard, they were filming “Jaws,” and we sat on the beach and chatted with actor Roy Scheider when he was on break. We went on to Menemsha to see the shark from “Jaws” hanging outside a building and were told that the village fish market was keeping the shark cool with its refrigeration. Menemsha looked old then and still does, in a reassuring way.
Several of the small buildings near the harbor offer T-shirts and art at varying levels of fashion, talent and price, and from one tiny building, ice cream is ordered at one window, food at the other, no seating. Unlike the sleek Boston whalers and sailboats in other Martha’s Vineyard harbors, well-used lobster boats are tied up at Menemsha. We went on to the place we used to know as Gay Head where the brilliantly colored clay cliffs drop 100 feet into the sea, where you can see the string of Elizabeth Islands and where you can climb the lighthouse and get an aerial view without.
