She is most at home in the water and on it.

“My grandparents had a house on Morse street with a barn out back and they gave it to my parents when they got married. We called it The Shack and I was there from zero to ten. We would start coming Easter weekend and go straight through until Halloween and we’d be here all summer. We would load up the car Friday after school and we’d stay until Sunday night or Monday morning, depending on the tides. Dad was a fisherman, you know, so if the fishing was good, we’d stay.”

Sailing already is getting under way this summer.

The Vineyard Haven Yacht Club is observing its 80th summer. The Edgartown Yacht Club is hosting more summer sailing events than it did a year ago. Sail Martha’s Vineyard is gearing up for its big sailing classic Vineyard Cup in mid-July. The Holmes Hole Sailing Association has launched its Sunday and Thursday races.

Across the Island’s harbors, the boats are here. Plenty more are coming. The talk at yacht clubs is about events, wind, markers, crew and gear.

The wheels on his bike stopped abruptly on Centre street behind Café Moxie when the pantry chef saw the flames breaking through the roof of the restaurant around 9:40 a.m. today, the Fourth of July. “I guess I don’t have work today,” he said sadly, and rode off.

Carolyn, from Rhode Island, one of the dozens of holiday makers who stood in line for fried clams one recent Sunday at The Bite in Menemsha, was taken aback at the prices.

“This is pretty intense,” she said, looking down at the red and white take-out carton, roughly the size of a Tiffany’s ring gift box. Containing eight to ten clams, a half pint of deep fried whole bellies at The Bite currently costs $12.95. Counting his change, her father told her: “You just presided over a theft.”