Although I rather be saying that I am heading off-island, it suits me just fine to be heading “off cape” for the night.

• Starting point- Right here in Falmouth, MA
• Launching point - At the ferry terminal in Woods Hole, MA
• Arriving point - At the ferry terminal in Vineyard Haven, Martha’s Vineyard, MA
• Disembarking point - Town of Oaks Bluffs, Martha’s Vineyard, MA

By Shuttle, Ferry and Bus

The whole experience will be fairly automobile-free for me. All I have to do is walk a couple blocks over to the Palmer Avenue parking lot owned by the Steamship Authority. They provide free shuttles from their parking lots to the ferry terminal in Woods Hole which is about 4 miles away.

In fair weather conditions, I might opt for walking or biking down the Shining Sea Bikeway which ends at the ferry terminal. You can actually purchase passage on the ferry for your bike ($3/each way) as well if you want to bike on the island. Since the weather forecast looks to be “iffy” for the day, (at present time of this writing, cloudy and in the high 30s, low 40s with a possibility of rain), I will take the shuttle as soon as I am ready and hang around Woods Hole until the ferry arrives.

I am planning on catching the 10:45 AM ferry so that I can enjoy a short wait time for the Vineyard Transit which runs buses all over the island at regular intervals. Believe me when I say there will not be very much to see at all in Vineyard Haven especially in February.

The nice thing about the Vineyard Transit is that they have an all-day pass ($6) so I can just take Route #13 (see PDF) which will take me along the beach roads to Edgartown. Just in time for lunch at wherever is open in the dead of the winter.

It will give me a good couple of hours to kill walking around Edgartown before I hop back on good ole #13 in Edgartown back down the beach roads to Oak Bluffs.

A couple hours may not sound like much until you consider the fact both Edgartown and Oak Bluffs have roughly 3,750 to 4,000 year round souls in each town. With that many year round residents, you won’t have to walk far to where you want to go (as opposed to Manhattan and its’ 2 million residents where you have to take the subway from uptown to downtown).

I suppose depending on the weather conditions, if it looks good, I’ll try to catch a ride down to the legendary “Jaws Bridge” to grab a couple pictures around sundown. You probably have seen this bridge already. You know that scene in the movie where that big white fish named Jaws goes under the bridge into the lagoon.