This is written from a Nantucketer to Vineyarders. Maybe you do not want to hear this due to simple petty rivalry but I am coming as a fellow Islander (as a Nantucketer) with so much in common. I love your special place and if I could live there, I would. I am your home-birth midwife, and I have had the pleasure of being part of your community in such a positive way for the past seven years.

Before Meals in the Meadow this past Saturday night, I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t know all that much about the Farm Institute — mostly that a friend’s daughter was involved and loved it. But I left Saturday’s event with a sense of amazement and appreciation for all the Farm Institute does for the Island and, really, the world.

I am writing to share some observations with regard to my protest activities against the Oak Bluffs Monster Shark Tournament last Saturday afternoon. Between the hours of 2 and 4 p.m. I paddled my kayak with attached non-confrontational signs throughout the harbor. My goal was to present the shark fishermen and spectators with the reality that shark populations worldwide have decreased by 90 per cent over the past 40 years and that this tournament should become a catch-and-release event.

The Menemsha harbor dock project is on the warrant for the Chilmark’s special town meeting scheduled for August 6 at the Chilmark Community Center. The town received a grant from the Massachusetts Seaport Advisory Council to repair, rebuild and build docks in Menemsha. The proposed plan is to change the solid wood transient dock to concrete floats. I am passionately in favor of keeping the transient dock (the section that runs parallel to the jetty) solid wood.

The second annual Cool Pool Parties fundraising event to benefit the YMCA is this Saturday, July 28, from 7 to 10 p.m.

The idea is simple and yet ingenious. Guests are invited to choose
one of three private Vineyard properties to relax poolside and enjoy a
party matched to a particular theme.

Batch on Hatch is hosted by Kathy and Jim Gidwitz and takes place
in Vineyard Haven. This party features music by Andy Suzuki and food by
Kitchen Porch catering.

Possibly the biggest, and certainly the longest, sailboat races of
summer come together this weekend. On Saurday, 74 sailboats are expected
to race around the Island in the Edgartown Yacht Club’s annual Round the
Island race. The race — about 52 miles in length — starts in early
morning and lasts all day, taking boats clockwise around the Island.

The Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank reported revenues of $186,429 for the business week ending on Friday, July 20, 2012. The land bank receives its funds from a two per cent fee charged on many Vineyard real estate transactions.

A charter fishing trip turned exciting Thursday morning when those aboard came within five feet of what they believed to be a surfacing great white shark.

Buddy Vanderhoop, captain of the charter boat Tomahawk III, was taking his charter customers out for a morning of fishing when they came upon the nearly 20-foot shark about a mile offshore, between Aquinnah and Noman’s Land.

On Friday, The Cottagers Inc. of Martha’s Vineyard
sponsor the eighth annual African American Cultural Festival, an event
packed with free educational programs and culture. The festival takes
place in Hartford Park off Massassoit avenue and at Cottagers Corner on
Pequot avenue.

If you haven’t heard about the latest incendiary human who used an arsenal of firearms to blow away a dozen Colorado moviegoers as well as injure nearly five dozen more, then you must be living under a rock. And if that’s where you are, then if I were you, I’d stay there. That’s probably the last safe place in America.