A good way to appreciate the Island is to leave it. Preferably by morning boat, through the links between ponds, with seasoned Vineyarders as guides.

Monday morning, the Quitsa Lady embarked from Nashaquitsa Pond for Cuttyhunk with three Island ambassadors, two fishing rods and some peanut butter sandwiches aboard. Capt. Wayne Smith was at the helm. Bert Fischer was first mate. A reporter strived for able-bodied seaman.

The ostensible purpose of the journey was to document an eighth grade graduation on Cuttyhunk. But there would be other adventures along the way.

At the Quitsa launch, Chilmark shellfish constable Isaiah Scheffer and his assistant William Reich Jr. loaded white wooden boxes onto a raft. The boxes would soon be filled with 17 scoops of sand each and be home to hundreds of thousands of tiny quahaugs just at the start of their lives.

An optimistic task, with the ponds in a fragile state.

“In my thirteenth year I can honestly say I haven’t seen any improvement in water quality,” Mr. Scheffer said. Despite continued efforts, eel grass has not returned.

As the Quitsa Lady passed Menemsha harbor, a black-crowned night heron stood watch on a piling. Fishermen waved from the jetty. Out of the channel and into the sound, the water was flat calm.

“You got a good day,” Captain Smith said. On the way to Cuttyhunk, the Quitsa Lady stopped once to scoop a blue mylar balloon out of the water. The Gay Head Light shrank in the distance, blinking red and white.

The Quitsa Lady arrived in the Cuttyhunk harbor almost at the same time as the 9 a.m. Cuttyhunk ferry from New Bedford. Passengers disembarked and settled into waiting golf carts. The scent of beach roses was in the air.

The first person to greet the Vineyarders summed up what seemed to be the prevailing attitude on the idyllic island: “We hope you like Cuttyhunk, but not enough to stay.”

Other Cuttyhunkers echoed the sentiment, protective of the disarming beauty around them. They worried about the proliferation of golf carts, about their fragile lens aquifer. They complained about the piping plovers. They disagreed about the number of houses on the island. One said 153, another said 156.

At the Cuttyhunk Fishing Club, housekeeper Cheryl Goslin showed pictures of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson from when they had visited. She pointed to an antique cabinet.

“A lot of millionaires would come here because this is where they used to do all their deals,” she said. “See those boxes? That’s where their liquor would go. People think that’s where mail would go but it’s liquor.”

In the one-room schoolhouse, students’ heights were notated on a doorpost for each year. Plants lined the windows. A bulletin board quietly proclaimed: “Cuttyhunk: Where land ends and begins.”

A road leading to the highest point of the island was lined with plein air painters visiting for a workshop. Fishermen staying at Pete’s Place descended a hill toward the water. The Island market was closed, a sign outside said.

People walked barefoot and waved to one another. Landscapers made their way methodically across a slope of grass with weed whackers.

On the return trip to the Vineyard, the Quitsa Lady stopped once when a striper broke the surface. Captain and mate cast their lines, trading jokes about hooking one another. No bites.

Then they were home again. As the Quitsa Lady made her way back toward the dock, the Island ambassadors marveled at the shocking white of a great egret.