They may be fish out of water, but this year’s Bass in the Grass auction is helping to raise thousands of dollars for scholarships, artists and the Edgartown Board of Trade.

Steamship Authority rates will remain unchanged next year, according to a preliminary $123 million operating budget reviewed by the boat line governors.

Brian Athearn isn’t used to sitting still and keeping quiet. But on Wednesday, the Agricultural Society president stayed in his seat and listened to a string of speeches in his honor, before accepting the Spirit of the Vineyard Award.

Oak Bluffs took another step closer to its ambitious downtown streetscape reconstruction Tuesday, when the select board agreed to issue a request for proposals to rebuild Circuit avenue with wider sidewalks, new trees and planters and parallel parking.

Bay scalloping season is about to begin, but harvests are expected to be limited, Island shellfish constables said this week. Edgartown traditionally gets the season started first, with recreational scalloping open Oct. 1.

In the dark stillness of Saturday morning, music mingled with the smell of woodsmoke at Bend in the Road Beach in Edgartown, where scores of tea lights twinkled against a backdrop of navigational markers flashing out to sea.