Moonlight Paddle

Felix Neck offers a paddle by moonlight on Friday and Saturday evenings, August 15 and 16, from 7 to 9 p.m. You can see Sengekontacket pond in a new light, moon light, as you kayak with a guide on the pond as the moon rises. The program is open to ages 11 and up with an adult. The cost is $38, or $32 for Mass Audubon members. Registration is required. For details, call 508-627-4850.

Edgartown police responded to two major accidents this past week: one involving a pair of Harley-Davidson motorcycles and another involving a pair of bicycles. In both cases, one person involved in the accident was seriously injured and airlifted by helicopter to Boston-based hospitals.

Edgartown Realtor Elected

To Cape, Islands Board

Bill LeRoyer, co-owner and principal broker of Harborside Realty Inc. of Edgartown, has been elected to the board of directors of the Cape Cod and Islands Association of Realtors.

The professional association is made up of member real estate offices located on Cape Cod, the Vineyard and Nantucket and is the local chapter of the National Association of Realtors, which has more than one million members in the United States.

JANE N. SLATER

508-645-3378

(slaterjn@comcast.net)

At an occasionally raucous Aquinnah special town meeting last Thursday, voters made at least two things clear: that there is support for town action on wind energy, and that they view a proposed energy bylaw as a rush job prepared without nearly enough community involvement.

The bylaw was postponed indefinitely at a meeting attended by 42 voters. But a second, more conceptual article supporting the ongoing investigation of community wind was resoundingly approved.

It was raining yesterday morning — and thankfully the weather gods switched the downpour with Sunday’s splendor and the Martha’s Vineyard Festival which saw music jamming in Ocean Park from three in the afternoon until just past 11 p.m.

“It doesn’t rain on my shows,” declared Festival Network vice president Rick White just before the event.

NASA might want to get in touch with him.

A 1,500 pound, eight-foot long male leatherback turtle that had become entangled in fishing gear was rescued in Nantucket Sound on Friday by a group that included the Oak Bluffs harbor master and shellfish constable.

“I couldn’t believe the size of that thing. That is a first for me,” said harbor master Todd Alexander.

With the sounding of the horn, some 1,600 runners in the 31st Chilmark Road Race took off. The herd shot toward the press truck like raptors in a Steven Spielberg film and the red pickup sped up to avoid being overtaken. John Ciccarelli was at the front, his face just feet from the photographers’ lenses. Behind him two boys in pink shirts attempted a 100-meter dash in the beginning of the 3.1-mile race and soon dropped off to the side.

Sunday’s stiff southwest wind more than made up for Saturday’s light air to make the 14th annual Edgartown Yacht Club 12-metre regatta a weekend success. Ten of the fastest sailboats in the region, contenders in past America’s Cup racing, came together on Nantucket Sound to share a moment at the start and race to the finish. Saturday had time for just one race; Sunday had three.

Jeff Randall, a 12-metre enthusiast and event chairman, said the weekend sailing will go down in the yacht club books as one of the best sailing weekends they’ve had.

Red wine and cigarettes, dirty jokes and skinny dipping, late night sorties onto the streets of Oak Bluffs in outrageous costume — the manifestations of Abby Bender and Brent Alberghini’s 14-year relationship tend toward the risky and risque. But 12 years ago their offbeat ideas of friendship and community also nurtured something of an Island institution, the annual Built on Stilts community dance festival. The festival begins its week-long run this coming Friday.

Interviews by Mike Seccombe