Nantucket Art

While the Island of Nantucket is over 25 miles off the coast of Cape Cod, getting there is relatively easy. Whether bringing a bike for the weekend, or just going over for the day, there are many options available to island vacationers and visitors alike.
 
For those that like a long relaxing boat ride (about 2 hours 15 minutes) there are the slow ferries. The Steamship Authority Eagle is shown on the right. The Eagle, along with the Motor Vessel Nantucket both carry vehicles as big as tractor trailers. During the peak season these two ferries combine to make twelve trips each day between Hyannis and Nantucket. The Steamship Authority provides year-round service to Nantucket. Reservations made months in advance for your auto are a must!
  
  For those that don’t like the slow ride, high speed ferries have been introduced in recent years that cut the boat ride down to about an hour. These high speed ferries offer first class service, take luggage and bicycles, but not vehicles. Shown on the left is the ‘Grey Lady II’, the high speed catamaran of Hy-Line Cruises. Hy-Line Cruises also has slower ferries and provides year-round service but unlike the Steamship Authority, they do not carry vehicles.
 
If you are interested in just getting to Nantucket as fast as you can, then there are several airlines that can get you there in about 15 minutes (from Hyannis). Shown on the right is a plane from Island Air. Other airlines from around the Northeast also fly to Nantucket including Nantucket Airlines and Fly Cape Air.
  
For those who have excess baggage or unaccompanied luggage there is a new luggage delivery service available to those traveling to and from Nantucket. Luggage Forward, provides guaranteed door-to-door luggage and sports equipment delivery to more than 200 countries worldwide, and offers a wide range of specialized forwarding options allowing clients the convenience of traveling without their luggage. Luggage Forward recently announced the opening of the company’s first walk-up forwarding location. Luggage Forward will open a fully staffed counter at the Nantucket Memorial Airport (ACK), the second busiest airport in New England, for the 2006 summer season. Read more by clicking on this link.
 
Once on island, taxi’s are available for transportation around Nantucket. Also available is the The Nantucket Regional Transit Authority (NRTA) which provides island wide seasonal fixed route bus service. The NRTA was established to alleviate downtown traffic congestion and to create parking opportunities in the downtown core district. The NRTA began providing seasonal fixed route service in 1995 operating four buses on two routes. It soon became apparent that the NRTA would become an island-wide transportation system. Over the past eight years the NRTA has expanded its services that includes island wide transportation operating nine routes with 13 buses.

Nantucket Sound is a roughly triangular area of the Atlantic Ocean offshore from the U.S. state of Massachusetts. It is enclosed by Cape Cod on the north, Nantucket on the south, and Martha’s Vineyard on the west; between Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard it is connected to the Vineyard Sound. Ports on Nantucket Sound include Nantucket and Hyannis, Massachusetts.

Nantucket Sound possesses significant marine habitat for a diversity of ecologically and economically important species. “The Sound” has particular significance for several federally protected species of wildlife and a variety of commercially and recreationally valuable fisheries.

The Sound is located at a confluence of the cold Labrador currents and the warm Gulf Stream. This creates a unique coastal habitat representing the southern range for Northern Atlantic species and the northern range for Mid-Atlantic species. Nantucket Sound has a lot of biological diversity and contains habitats that range from open sea to salt marshes, as well as warm-water beaches on the Cape and Islands coasts.

A proposal by Cape Wind to construct the first offshore wind farm in the United States has been met with controversy because of its location in Nantucket Sound.^[1]

• Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound — 501(c)(3) nonprofit environmental organization dedicated to the long-term preservation of Nantucket Sound
• Cape Wind — Proposed Off-Shore Wind Project
• The Steamship Authority — providing ferry service in the Sound
• Wind Over Water — A documentary film about the wind farm proposed for Nantucket Sound.