​We are members of the Ocean Cruising Club (OCC). This is a club of sailors without a club house, and only with members who have completed a 1,000 mile offshore passage. In America this is considered quite something as not that many venture beyond the East Coast, the Bahamas and the Caribbean. ​In the Huntington Yacht Club, people couldn't believe we had sailed across the Atlantic, and they are sailors!

Some time ago we committed $50 and signed up for the July 4th OCC Rally in New England. We missed the start of it on the 21st June but caught up with everyone in Martha's Vineyard (MV) on the 27th. We left Huntington yesterday and sailed, well motored actually, overnight to get here in time for the evenings social event, which was a 'cook out' at a members house. We met an eclectic bunch of really nice people on a dozen or so yachts, and were treated not only to seeing a historic water front home in MV, but also to a visit from the MV young male 'a capella' singing group who arrived barefoot wearing shorts, shirts and ties. They were all college students and excellent.

We also learned a lot on our first night with our fellow cruisers in MV. We learned that it was here that Jaws was filmed in 1975, 40 years ago! We also learned that the fishing boat captain that went out with Richard Dreyfuss was played by Robert Shaw..................who is from Bolton; Westhoughton to be precise!  In Edgartown there is a small old fashioned cinema that seats about 200 people max, and they show show the film Jaws twice every Sunday. Needless to say, it was a full house and the film hadn't aged as we had expected. We and about a dozen other OCC members actually enjoyed the evening.

Martha's Vineyard is a really laid back, oldy worldy, family holiday place, but without the commercialism. Think Cornwall 50 years ago but without the crowds, as it's on an island, and you might be somewhere near.

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