Nantucket is not only large summer houses for the wealthy as I expected. It is a small island made of shifting sand dunes with a strong community feeling that acknowledges its relative transience and so appreciates all the more. It was also the centre of the global whaling industry for 50 years, before the discovery of oil brought it to an abrupt end.

We went ashore, parked next to a cormorant and went in search of the recycling bins.

First stop, the Whaling Museum. The early settlers tried farming but the land could barely support subsistence so they needed something they could export. They looked to the local Wampanoag Indians who practiced ‘drift whaling’ – utilising the carcasses of dead and dying whales that washed up on their shores. When one presumable sick whale was seen in the harbour for several days they decided to go and get it, and whale hunting was born. (The skeleton of the sperm whale in the museum, an immature 15 year old male of about 45ft was found dying on the beach too. The post mortem showed it had fractured ribs and a tooth abscess, presumed as a result of a collision with a boat).

The success of this whaling community is attributed to two things. The first was that they were the only whalers brave enough to go after the sperm whale which is the most aggressive of all those hunter, most targeting the Right Whale (named because it was the ‘right whale to go after; it is docile, curious enough to approach boats and floated when dead). The Sperm whale was worth hunting because the 300-500 gallons of oil found inside the huge head was the highest quality, valuable for lubricating the increasingly sophisticated machinery of the time and for providing clean odourless oil for lamps and candles.

Other interesting Sperm whale facts:

- It only has lower teeth, locating in sockets on the upper jaw and used for holding the giant squid on which it feed

- It only has a single nostril that creates a unique 45 degree spout on expiration, enabling easy identification

- It is the only whale to secrete a substance called ambergris – also very valuable, as a stabiliser in the perfume industry. Probably produced to cover sharp, indigestible objects like squid beaks, it is thought it may help their passage through the whale gut, either in vomit or faeces, but occasionally found inside the stomach

This lower jaw belonged to a huge male of 85ft and was brought back to port as a trophy. Teeth were usually removed and distributed to the crew for making scrimshaw, a means of passing the time and documenting the adventures of the illiterate men. (Whalebone for corsets were actually made from baleen, the keratin substance more like fingernails).

The second factor was their early adoption of the Quaker faith. Central to their belief is recognition of gender equality, important when many of the men went to sea for up to 5 years at a time. Women were educated and held positions of office within the community. One of its famous women was Maria Mitchell, the astronomer who discovered the Miss Mitchell Comet in 1847. She apparently has a crater on the moon named after her too – the size of Nantucket!

The islands considerable wealth was derived entirely from whaling and when the industry collapsed, the population shrank from 10,000 to 3,000 in a few years – many leaving for California and its ‘Gold Rush’. This dormant phase in its history inadvertently preserved is character and helped establish the thriving tourism that now sustains the island.

In the afternoon we went on another 20 mile cycle trip to the east coast. We rewarded ourselves with an ice-cream on a beach reminiscent of the film ‘Jaws’ - reputedly filmed in Martha’s Vineyard, the neighbouring island.

We also passed the famous cranberry bogs of this area, complete with their hardworking labourers.