Unlike other spring sports at Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School, sailing can’t move indoors in inclement weather.

The team is on the water most afternoons, after catching the bus from school to Sailing Camp Park (parent organization Sail MV provides the facilities and equipment for the team). When it rains, they rig up the boats. When there’s no wind, they go out and practice nonetheless. And if there’s a late-season snow shower, well, the team’s still on the water. About the only thing that can keep them inside is lightning.

Derrill Bazzy walked around the Vanderhoop Homestead in Aquinnah on a recent spring afternoon, unable to conceal his enormous pride in the place that he had a hand in saving. As the wind howled off the Atlantic in this outpost setting at the extreme western end of the Vineyard, Mr. Bazzy took out the keys.

“This has always been one of my favorite houses on the Island,” he said, giving the door a nudge with his shoulder. “It would have been a treasure lost if we hadn’t just happened to hear about the sale.”

He plays the recorder. She plays the piano. They are both retired and inherited the house in which they now live. Fred H.C. Hotchkiss and his wife, Anita, are two members of the new majority: the rapidly growing elderly population on the Vineyard.

In every community there are people who have different experiences, who are unique and yet similar. We live side by side with each other, but how much do we know about our neighbors? Most of the people I spoke to for this piece are well known to me, and yet I did not know their stories. We all have a story, sometimes known only to ourselves.

By MARK ALAN LOVEWELL

Persistent wet, foggy, rainy weather of the last week will come to an end early in the coming week. A more positive trend is around the corner, according to Benjamin Sipprell, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Taunton.