The state Division of Marine Fisheries yesterday expanded closed shellfish areas to include the eastern side of Nantucket Sound due to red tide. The closure does not affect fish or shellfish harvested and landed in Vineyard waters.

The agency sent out the notification for the benefit of shellfishermen and fish markets that sell shellfish wholesale and retail. Affected shellfish include surf clams, ocean quahaugs, mussels, carnivorous snails and whole sea scallops. Those scallops are exempt if only the adductor muscle is landed.

The renowned English hospitality was nowhere to be found for one Vineyard man recently, when the laptop computer he was using to store research for a book he is writing about his family history was stolen from a parked car outside his family’s U.K. home.

Warren Arrives

Carolyn Warren and Gregory Cabana of Vineyard Haven announce the birth of a son, Warren Byrne Cabana, on June 22 at the Martha’s Vineyard Community Hospital. Warren weighed 7 pounds, 13 ounces at birth.

Louisa Gould Gallery opens the Vineyard Painting show today with an artists’ reception from 5 to 7 p.m. at its Main street, Vineyard Haven location. The exhibition features Lynette Goric with seascapes, Christopher Pendergast’s portraits of buoys, seashell paintings on masonite by Donna Blackburn, and, reminding us of inland Island moments, Caryn King’s farm animals

The red planet Mars appears close to the bright star Regulus tonight and the nights ahead. The two are in the zodiacal constellation Leo and in the western sky after sunset. The glow of twilight will still be in the west.

Amid claims of illicit permit trading and concern over a packed waiting list for mooring slips in Chilmark, town leaders were asked to tighten areas of the town waterways regulations at a public hearing last week.

Susan Murphy, who operates Menemsha marine repair with her husband and rents out multiple moorings in town, argued that the long waiting list for mooring slips is a result of allowing leaseholders to keep their slips empty for a year at a time.

In turn, she argued, this may be leading to rule-dodging amongst those desperate for a spot on the harbor.

The Steamship Authority has sold the long-troubled ferry Flying Cloud to a Venezuelan company for $3.9 million.

Boat line general manager Wayne C. Lamson announced Wednesday that Gran Cacique II bought the high-speed vessel, which ran on the Hyannis-Nantucket route from 2000 to 2006.

The SSA paid nearly $8 million for the Flying Cloud, which was built by Derector Shipyards in Mamaroneck, N.Y. The boat line placed the vessel in service to compete against Hy-Line in the Hyannis-Nantucket high-speed ferry market.

Seamus and Aaron Arrive

Sarah Ward Callahan and James Callahan of Rutland, Vt., announce the birth of twin boys, Seamus Ward Callahan and Aaron Walter Callahan, on May 13.

Twelve monks from the Drepung Loseling Monastery in southern India visited the Vineyard for five days last week to spread good karma and raise money for their monastery. Cris Mayhew of Edgartown was instrumental in bringing the monks to the Island.

“The five days started with me going over to Woods Hole to greet them (try approaching the check-in shed and asking if a van of 12 Tibetan monks has arrived) and ended with a goodbye blessing at the Oak Bluffs dock right before boarding. So much happened in between,” Ms. Mayhew wrote in an e-mail this week.

Buddhist Teaching

Khenpo Tsering Samdup will be at the Bodhi Path of Martha’s Vineyard for a weekend teaching series on Saturday and Sunday, June 28 and 29. He will teach on The Jewel Ornament of Liberation by Gampopa, the seminal handbook of the Kagyü Buddhist view and path. Teaching times are 10 a.m. to noon and 2 to 4 p.m. both days. All are welcome.