In Search of Moby Dick

Illustration of the Whale from Herman Melville's 'Moby Dick', from Wikipedia.

'Call me Ishmael', Nantucket Island (first settled 1641), is a real bucket-list destination, evoking thoughts of whaling, Moby Dick, Starbuck, Queequeg and Cap'n Ahab. Our Plan A was to put our Jeep on the ferry at Hyannis, spend two nights there, and then come back to Cape Cod. After consultation with Sandy at the Anchor In and hearing how expensive the car fare was, we developed a day-trip to Nantucket Plan B, which we followed. Sandy's advice was good!

The Nantucket whaling museum would have been worth a visit, but it was closed. It is housed in an old whale-oil candle factory.

Our Hy-Line Fast Ferry pulling in to dock in Hyannis Harbor

We chose the fast Hy-Line ferry (a catamaran), with a one-way trip taking about an hour. Notices warned us it was 'choppy' but we found that the passage was remarkably smooth. Apart from us, there were absolutely no tourists on board, one of the delights of winter! The ferry was maybe 30% full of mostly construction workers travelling to jobs on the island. Commuting to Nantucket must be every expensive, unless they get an exceptional deal for being regulars. We were surprised to see the workers queue up well before time to go aboard, but later we figured they each have their favourite seat and want to get it.

Harborfront houses in Hyannis, from the Nantucket Ferry.

The Steamship Company car-ferry leaving Hyannis for Nantucket. Anchor In on the right.

Waiting for passengers off the Hy-Line Fast Ferry to Nantucket.

Sandy wanted us to take a guided tour of the island, but when she rang Gail up for us, she answered from Florida - Gail is no fool! So, on Nantucket we easily rented a car so we could explore the island (only about 100 square miles and shaped roughly like Tasmania). We used it for half the day, and spent the other half walking around the historical and beautiful downtown area.

Brant Point Light at the entrance to Nantucket Harbor.

Shopfront decorations relive old whalers.

The drive around the island was interesting, but the maps we had were poor and we had forgotten to take our GPS navigator with us. Even on that little island, we managed to get lost a few times, but that only gave us to explore places we didn't intend. From the sea, and confirmed by the drive, Nantucket is a flat sand-spit of an island. Its maximum elevation is less than 10m. The less commonly used roads are unpaved and others are simply covered by blown sand. Some are closed for winter, there being few people there to keep them cleared for. We didn't venture onto the unpaved roads in our Toyota Camry except to do some extended U-turns. We couldn't get to Coskata and the GReat Point Lighthouse for this reason. Nevertheless, we saw enough of the island to deduce its delicious flavour. Like on Cape Cod, it seems the popular recreational beaches are on the protected northern side, not facing the treacherous Atlantic surfs.

'Nantucket NASA 2002' by NASA Johnson Space Center - Earth Sciences and Image Analysis (NASA-JSC-ES&IA) - NASA. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

Outside Nantucket town, the island seems to be a loose network of tiny clusters of tidy holiday houses. We couldn't call these clusters villages because they generally didn't have a centre, didn't have a single shop. The houses ranged from modest to quite grand, just like on Cape Cod.

Frozen surface and coastline around Polpis Harbor off Nantucket Harbor.

Sankaty Head Lighthouse on Nantucket's east coast.

One spectacularly beautiful village (we can call it that, it had a shop & a PO) was Siasconset, set on a ridge above the Atlantic facing south-eastern corner of Nantucket. What a little piece of paradise, a village of narrow streets and lanes whose buildings are uniformly clad with weathered grey shingles, some with fabulous ocean views. We bought stamps from the PO, but the shop was closed until April.

The only place open in town, the Siasconset Post Office.

Front Street in Siasconset would not take much traffic.

Fine name for a restaurant in Nantucket.

Nantucket township is a haven of postcard-worthy sights and numerous tourist traps, almost all closed for our visit. Most summer day-trippers, it seems, don't leave downtown where they can succumb to any amount of shopping and imbibing. Downtown apparently hosts the US's greatest concentration of pre-1850 housing, and also boasts some of its most expensive property, definitely reserved for the well-to-do. In a real-estate office in town, we noted that modest houses go for $1M, and saw a $20M price tag on a large 'estate' with some land around it.

Fine mansions in downtown Nantucket.

The town wraps around the harbour on the northern side, facing Cape Cod and Nantucket Sound. A large area around the harbour is quite roughly cobble-stoned which has the desirable effect of slowing the traffic down. There seemed to be a lot more cruising pick-up trucks than actual commerce going on, which is a pity. The cobbles are hideous to walk on, but there are numerous pedestrian crossings of smoother paving.

Ankle-twisting cobblestones in the streets of Nantucket town.

Doing a U-turn in our rental, near the Brant Point Light.