Tomorrow morning, the Martha’s Vineyard Museum will host a gathering of book authors at the Pease House on School street in Edgartown. Among the distinguished lineup will be Tom Hale, who at 11 a.m. will sign copies of a newly printed edition of a 19th century book, Mr. Hardy Lee, His Yacht. The book, Drawn by Chinks and originally published in 1857, is widely considered the first on yachting in America.

There was almost no one on the first deck of the MV Martha’s Vineyard on the 2:30 p.m. boat out of Woods Hole on Nov. 16. Once the motor vessel had turned around to head out across the Sound, the quiet was deafening— no hum of conversations, no cell phones in use, no shuffling footsteps, no babies’ cries, no children’s running feet, no greetings, no laughter, no one. The vacant seats spooked me a bit. Is this what the end would be like?