Seeking Islandwide support for the relocation of the historic Gay Head Light, the town of Aquinnah will ask the five other Vineyard towns to commit to spending Community Preservation Act money next year to help pay for the move.

A Framingham man found dead near Lake Tashmoo last week either jumped or fell from a Steamship Authority ferry, police said.

Francis G. Elms, 74, of Framingham, was found fully clothed in the ocean west of the Lake Tashmoo opening by a caretaker on the morning of Sept. 25, according to state police Sgt. Jeffrey Stone. A state medical examiner has determined that the cause of death was drowning, Sergeant Stone said.

Plans for a large expansion and renovation of the Vineyard Haven Stop & Shop, which have raised concerns about a range of issues from aesthetics to traffic, had a slightly different look when they came before the Martha’s Vineyard Commission again Thursday night.

The sun had just climbed above Squibnocket ridge when Lieut. Nathan Rimpf and Senior Airman Emanuel Thompson spotted their first catch of the day.

“Birds,” Mr. Rimpf and Mr. Thompson said simultaneously with the quiet confidence of pros. With a slight nod of the head, the two surmised that a large school of fish weren’t too far away.

It is incredibly dry. How dry? Last month was the driest September on the Vineyard in 67 years of record keeping.

Foliage is turning brown. Lawns are amber and leaves and grass crunch underfoot. Fire has become a concern.

Yesterday, while responding to a mid-day small brush fire in the woods near Sweetened Water Farm in Edgartown, fire chief Peter Shemeth called for mutual aid from West Tisbury.

“It is awfully dry and there is nothing you can do about it,” confirmed West Tisbury fire chief Manuel Estrella.

As the summer season comes to a close, revenue from two new taxes in Tisbury is helping to boost town finances.

Town administrator John (Jay) Grande presented summer totals from an occupancy tax increase and a new meals tax during the selectmen’s meeting Tuesday.

The occupancy tax increased from four to six per cent, leading to revenues of $95,309 for July and August. Last year during the same time period, revenues were $64,611.

The meals tax netted Tisbury $24,796, town treasurer Timothy McLean said in a phone conversation Wednesday.

The fall sitting of the Dukes County superior court begins next Monday at the Edgartown courthouse.

The Hon. Cornelius J. Moriarty 2nd, an associate justice of the superior court, will preside over the session. A new grand jury convenes on Monday.

Several civil trials are on the schedule. The schedule is light on criminal matters, with jury trials scheduled for the end of the month for Darryl B. Baptiste and Patrece L. Petersen.

Rez Williams, the renowned Vineyard artist and conservationist, will receive this year’s Creative Living Award, the Permanent Endowment Fund for Martha’s Vineyard announced this week.

“He has painted landscapes and portraits, but is best known for his paintings of hulking fishing trawlers using a vibrant palette and sure, determined brushstrokes,” the fund said in a press release about the award.

Mr. Williams will be honored in a ceremony on Oct. 21 at 5:30 p.m. at the Grange Hall in West Tisbury. The public is invited to attend.

Stand on the north shore of the Vineyard at any point as the sun begins to set and look to the west. As the last light of day floods the land and sea, in the distance you will see the silhouette of the lighthouse, a lonely sentinel standing on a promontory of land at the westernmost edge of the Vineyard.

With its historic carousel, best-of-the-Vineyard pizza and fried clams and Victorian seaside charm that is rooted in an earlier century, Oak Bluffs is proud to be different.