A SUMMER CLASSIC

It was the blackest day of the Clinton presidency. Eyes puffy and red, Bill Clinton had just apologized to the nation for l’affaire Lewinsky. Hillary was angry and humiliated. Chelsea was hurt and worried.

If ever there was a family that needed a great vacation, it was this one. And as they had in sweeter times, the Clintons found what they required in the cool pine forests and soft sandy beaches of Martha’s Vineyard.

Since 1602, when ship captain Bartholomew Gosnold made landfall on the lush, grapevine-covered island and christened it “Martha’s” in honor of his beloved daughter, the Vineyard has been a safe haven for families, famous or not.

Along with such American-classic vacation spots as Hilton Head, Mackinac Island and the Hamptons, the Vineyard has been a high-profile retreat for generations. Last summer it was truly a port in the storm for the beleaguered First Family. And for the last 17 summers, the 100-square-mile island off the shoulder of Cape Cod has been my family’s favorite vacation destination.

Here, in a wildflower sanctuary across from an old Indian burial ground, my Boston-born husband and I were married. We exchanged vows in a six-pew chapel built in 1829 and walked back to our rented A-frame in the woods for the reception. Our entire wedding party, including siblings, parents and best friends, stayed for the honeymoon, so taken were they with the island’s natural splendors and fabulous restaurants.

Nearly every year since, we have returned to different places on the Vineyard. We have come as a couple with a dog, a family with a baby and a dog, a family with a toddler, baby and (same) dog, and more recently as a family with older children, younger cousins, aunt, uncle and grandmother sharing bits and pieces of our vacation with us.

Along the way, we have learned much about the island and not only how to get the most for our money, but also how to get the most pleasure from the precious time we have to spend there.

The best thing about vacationing on an island is that you are never far from the sea. Although Martha’s Vineyard is a large island and only seven miles from the southern shore of Massachusetts’ Cape Cod (its sister, Nantucket, is 30 miles out to sea), the taste of salt air is always on your tongue, briny and damp. Each day begins with the chatter of gulls and is divided by the tides, which at predictable times of morning and afternoon recede to reveal dark silt flats studded with husky bivalves, free for the taking to anyone with a $20 shellfish license and a clam rake.

Because the island is no more than nine miles across at its widest point, visitors are never more than 15 or 20 minutes from a beach. Even in the middle of the Vineyard’s quaint villages, where whalers first built, and now old-moneyed New England families maintain elegant harbor-front homes, the sea is always just around the corner, at the end of a bike path or lapping behind a chowder house. And it is for its spectacular beaches that so many families select Martha’s Vineyard as their summer retreat of choice.

Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen summer here, as do Spike Lee, Diane Sawyer and Mike Nichols. William Styron writes books here; Art Buchwald files his columns from here. Walter Cronkite has been sailing around the Vineyard for decades, as has Washington Post owner Katharine Graham, who hosted Nancy Reagan and Margaret Thatcher last August on a sail around the island while Washington lawyer Vernon Jordan was hosting birthday parties to cheer up President Clinton.

But you don’t have to be a celebrity to enjoy a Martha’s Vineyard vacation, nor do you need a Kennedy-sized bank account. When the population of the island swells in summer from 14,000 to 100,000, only a tiny percentage of the seasonal guests are rich or famous.

Getting here is at least half the fun. From Boston’s Logan Airport, families bound for the island can hop a 25-minute flight on a Cape Air nine-seater to Martha’s Vineyard Airport in Edgartown, or catch a bus for the two-hour trip to the ferry dock at Woods Hole on Cape Cod, or rent a car and drive to the ferry at either Woods Hole or Falmouth Harbor.

Unless you make your reservations well before Memorial Day, it is almost impossible to book ferry space for your car. But a car is not always necessary on the island. Many families leave their autos in one of the big parking fields at the ferry docks and get around easily with rented bikes, shuttle buses and island taxis.

The ferries, huge steel-hulled workhorses that make the 45-minute crossing in all seasons and most weather, have snack bars, booths and tables below decks, and hard molded-plastic chairs bolted to the top deck where children and pets--the latter on leashes--play and throw crackers over the metal-screened railings to the seabirds that soar and dive above the wake.

Ferries dock at either Vineyard Haven, a bustling port town with a working harbor, many year-round homes and a narrow street of artsy shops and T-shirt stores, or at the more honky-tonk Oak Bluffs.

For kids--or kids at heart--Oak Bluffs is a candy-colored kaleidoscope of saltwater taffy stands, pizza parlors--Giordano’s is the best--and bright-painted carousel horses.

Oak Bluffs is also considered the first African American resort, and is famous for the gingerbread architecture of cottages that have been built up around the grassy knoll that was a campground in the 19th century.

A pair of white sand beaches frames the ferry dock near the center of town, but our favorite Oak Bluffs attraction is the old-fashioned merry-go-round. The Flying Horses Carousel is a national historic landmark where for $1 you can ride a wooden horse that was carved back in 1876. It is one of the few carousels left where you can still grab a brass ring.

In Oak Bluffs, you can stay in the landmark Wesley Hotel or in one of the weathered gray guest houses with wraparound porches and rocking chairs.

If you step off the ferry at Vineyard Haven, head right over to the Black Dog Tavern and Bakery, the only restaurant on the harbor. Just steps from the wharf, the Black Dog--said to be President Clinton’s favorite and the place where he bought Monica Lewinsky a souvenir T-shirt--is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It serves a modestly priced menu--breakfast is the best bargain--of local seafood, garden-fresh vegetables and to-die-for pastries.

But there is almost always a line. Even if the wait is an hour (which it rarely is), you won’t be wasting your time. While you wait, you can sit out on the dock, admire the fancy sailboats bobbing in the harbor or play catch with one of the many black dogs (Labradors, mostly) that our family has come to believe are hired by the Black Dog’s owners to entertain families so we forget how hungry we are.

Walk up to Main Street for shopping, including a peek into our favorite vintage crafts house, Midnight Farm, and the Bunch of Grapes bookstore--the single best place to go for reading, games and crafts supplies on rainy days.

As one of the island’s designated “dry” towns--no alcohol is sold there--Vineyard Haven is one of the quieter places to sleep. There are a few inns within easy walking distance of the ferry dock and Main Street. One of the most neighborly is the Hanover House Inn, well located near bike trails and shops. This homey inn of sleeping rooms and suites welcomes children of any age except during the hectic month of August, when it does not take children under age 8.

But if you don’t mind hopping one of the many shuttle buses to Edgartown, there are other lodgings suitable for families of any size and age. Among our favorites are the Kelley House and the Daggett House, two very grand and authentic mansions with spectacular water views. If you care less about grandeur and more about affordability, check out the waterfront Harborside Inn or Edgartown Commons, which offers weekly rentals with kitchens.

For the ultimate laid-back surroundings, think about pitching your tent at the Vineyard’s only campground--the Martha’s Vineyard Family Campground in Vineyard Haven, which has modestly priced cabins along with tent sites.

As for beaches, all are within easy reach by shuttle bus, taxi or bicycle. Even when our children were still on training wheels, we biked as a family from Edgartown to South Beach, also called Katama. It’s a beautiful stretch of sand with lifeguards and waves big enough to need them. It’s a good beach for castle-building and shelling, but strong undertows can make it treacherous for tiny bathers.

If you are going to stay for a week or more, we found that renting a house or condo was most economical. (Hotel rooms run at least $150 per night, but you can often find a cottage for well under $1,000 a week.) Before our babies came along, we always returned to our honeymoon A-frame, but because its only source of heat was a potbellied stove in the center of the enormous glassed great room, and Vineyard nights in late summer can be cool, it wasn’t “civilized” enough for an infant and her tired parents.

The following year, we found the house of our dreams, a rental advertised in the 150-year-old Vineyard Gazette. The modest three-bedroom brick house was in Edgartown, the first non-Indian settlement on the Vineyard and the town where the whaling barons of the 19th century built some of New England’s most elegant homes.

Edgartown is the most cosmopolitan of the island towns and the one with the most celebrity sightings. It also is where we always rent our bikes--at Wheel Happy on Water Street in the center of town. For less than $20 a day each, you can rent five-speeds, three-speeds, mountain bikes, bikes with training wheels, even tandems.

With or without bikes, you can take the “On-Time” ferry between Edgartown and Chappaquiddick. The ferry is a motorized wooden barge that holds three cars at a time and runs nonstop from morning till night.

Chappy--as true Vineyarders call the island--is a rustic and sparsely populated island within an island. It is most famous as the site of the bridge from which Sen. Edward Kennedy’s car plunged in July 1969, drowning staffer Mary Jo Kopechne and Kennedy’s presidential aspirations.

At the end of a two-mile dirt road that winds through the Cape Pogue Wildlife Refuge is East Beach, which is lovely and mostly deserted.

Even if you just ride the ferry over and back, it’s worth the dollar fare to admire the East Chop lighthouse from the water and to feel the power of the current Kennedy was swimming against that fateful night.

Without a car (rentals are expensive) it will be a challenge to see all the island has to offer, but with a combination of bus tours and taxis you can experience enough to make you want to come back.

Although you will need a car or taxi to get there, try to visit the fishing docks at Menemsha Harbor. That’s where we always buy our lobsters, freshly caught, from the lobstermen themselves. If you’re squeamish about boiling the live crustaceans, either of the fish markets on the wharf there will do it for you. If you want to eat your lobster with chowder and all the trimmings, plan an evening at Home Port, a reservations-only dinner restaurant overlooking Menemsha Creek that is as celebrated for its stunning setting as it is for its fresh seafood.

Although it is far from where the ferries dock, one last trip to take before you leave is to the Gay Head Lighthouse. If you arrive about an hour before sunset, you’ll see the dramatic cliffs change from orange to red to purple as the colors explode in the setting sun. This makes a wonderful backdrop for a souvenir family photo.

We always go in August, when the weather is a perfect 78 by day and 60-ish at night. In the past, that has also been the Clintons’ favorite month to visit. But with Hillary Rodham Clinton exploring a run for one of New York’s Senate seats, this year politics may dictate a Long Island or upstate New York destination for the First Family.

But nothing is going to change my family’s vacation plans. We’re going back to the Vineyard.

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GUIDEBOOK

Summer on the Vineyard

Getting there: Continental and US Airways have flights with a single connection. Other major carriers have a connection with Cape Air. Round-trip fares begin at $661. From Boston, travelers can reach the island of Martha’s Vineyard by air, highway and sea. Cape Air, telephone (800) 352-0714, flies nine-passenger Cessnas directly from Boston, Providence, New Bedford and Hyannis into Martha’s Vineyard. Fares are $139 to $219 round trip from Boston, $79 to $109 from Providence, $69 from New Bedford or Hyannis.

You can rent a car at the airport and drive it to the ferry dock at Woods Hole. (Parking there costs $8 to $10 per day.) Or ride with Bonanza Bus Lines, tel. (800) 556-3815, whose restroom-equipped coaches depart about every two hours, 7:15 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., from the Boston airport terminals. Adult round-trip fare is $33.95; children 2-11, $17; no reservations required.

Round-trip ferry fares are $10 adults, $5 children 5 to 12. To take a car over costs $94 round trip. No reservations needed unless you’re planning to take a car on the boat. For schedules and auto reservations, contact the Steamship Authority; tel. (508) 477-8600, Internet https://www.islandferry.com.

Where to stay: Accommodations--from rented houses to bed-and-breakfasts to fancy hotels to modest motels--are available throughout the island during the summer months. If you arrive without a car, you may want to stay close to one of the towns where the ferries dock, Vineyard Haven or Oak Bluffs. In Oak Bluffs, a room at the landmark Wesley Hotel, tel. (508) 693-6611, costs $145 to $195 per night. A room with shared bath at Nashua House, tel. (508) 693-0043, a Victorian guest house that opened in 1873, can be had for $99.

A 15-minute shuttle bus ride from Vineyard Haven, the all-suites Edgartown Commons, tel. (508) 627-4671, is one block from the brick streets of elegant Edgartown. A two-room unit is $175 per night; a two-bedroom suite, $225. Both include kitchen, cable TV, children’s play areas and pool.

More thrifty visitors can check into the Martha’s Vineyard Family Campground at Vineyard Haven, tel. (508) 693-3772, where a tent site costs $30 per night and a one-room cabin with fridge and bunk beds is $80.

The most elegant lodgings are in the converted mansions of Edgartown, such as the Charlotte Inn, tel. (508) 627-4751, a treasury of antiques and lavish gardens where rooms for two begin at $295.

For house-rental listings ranging from $500 to $5,000 per week, check the classifieds of the Vineyard Gazette, tel. (508) 627-4311, or its Web site, https://www.mvgazette.com. Some of the island’s top real-estate agents advertise in the Martha’s Vineyard magazine, carried by most Borders and Barnes & Noble bookstores.

Where to eat: Black Dog Tavern, a pine-paneled eating house a stone’s throw from the Vineyard Haven ferry dock, tel. (508) 693-9223, serves up some of the creamiest, clammiest chowder in New England.

For romantic fine dining, Lambert’s Cove Country Inn in West Tisbury, tel. (508) 693-2298, is a 1790 inn set on seven secluded acres above a private beach and offers lodging as well as food.

For lobster steamed while you wait, go to one of the seafood stores at Menemsha Harbor and dine alfresco at an old wood picnic table while the sun sets on the fishing boats.

For more information: Martha’s Vineyard Chamber of Commerce, P.O. Box 1698, Vineyard Haven, MA 02568; tel. (508) 693-0085, Internet https://www.mvy.com.