The U.S. Coast Guard has abandoned plans to modernize the optic at the Gay Head Light and will instead maintain the current sweeping beam.
Lieut. Matthew Stuck of the Coast Guard aids to navigation branch said Monday that the Coast Guard has found a replacement optic for the current aging lens at the light. The replacement will likely happen sometime in the next few months.
“We plan to acquire the replacement and install it for the failing rotating beacon,” Mr. Stuck said. “Our hope is to maintain it for the indefinite future.”
New System of Trails May Result from Sale in Aquinnah
By CHRIS BURRELL
In a move that could resurrect a long-lost museum in Aquinnah and
create a network of trails over a dramatic south shore seascape, the
Martha's Vineyard Land Bank has agreed to buy the six-acre
Vanderhoop homestead just south of the Gay Head Lighthouse.
The first time Carlos Montoya came to the Vineyard, he took a ride
up-Island and turned onto Moshup Trail - the unmistakable
three-mile length of road that hugs the western edge of the Island.
"Oh my god," Mr. Montoya said this month, recalling his
impression from that 1970 visit. "It was unbelievable."
Now a 10-year resident of Moshup Trail, he characterizes it as the
single most important stretch of land in Aquinnah. "It is simply
one of the most magical places," Mr. Montoya said.
The Legend of Moshup is an ancient creation story from the Wampanoag oral tradition. It tells of the giant Moshup, the personification of the immense forces of nature, deciding to settle here after a long journey, and dragging his foot to separate Martha’s Vineyard from the mainland and plow up the Cliffs of Gay Head. Scraps from his dinner table are the fossilized bones and teeth of ancient life forms found there.
The Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank added a small but significant piece of land to its holdings at the scenic Gay Head Cliffs this week with the purchase of a single acre near the historic clay cliffs in the westernmost reaches of the Vineyard. The seller was the Vineyard Open Land Foundation. The purchase price was $225,000.
