The parking lot at Philbin Beach will be restricted to Aquinnah homeowners this summer, selectmen decided at a meeting Monday.

Last Sunday, while chasing waves in the Atlantic Ocean at Philbin Beach with my 11-year old granddaughter, I noticed the surf, which had been crashing in, had suddenly disappeared. The ocean I was standing in up to my waist seemed eerily calm. The sandy shore behind me lay perfectly flat, like a sheet of paper. How peculiar.

The Aquinnah selectmen agreed this week to explore a possible expansion of the Philbin Beach parking lot after a spokesman for a group of families that owns abutting property offered to gift a small parcel of land to the town for the purpose of expansion.

A federal magistrate has ruled that a man who sold his summer home but kept a nonbuildable lot in Aquinnah is not entitled to a parking permit to use Philbin Beach.

The decision sided with the town of Aquinnah in a case brought almost two years ago by John M. Callagy, who was denied a permit to the town beach off Moshup Trail after he sold his Aquinnah home in 2007. The beach was given to the town by J. Holladay Philbin in 1968 with a deed restriction that said the property was to be used “by all permanent and seasonal residents.”

Two years ago this month, Larry R. Couture took a walk on the beach in Aquinnah and spotted something shining in the sand. He found a piece of clear crystal quartz the size of a tennis ball. Though he didn’t know it at the time, it was a rare find.

This summer, Mr. Couture returned to the Island carrying a 60-carat quartz crystal. The gem was cut from the stone.