NANTUCKET.

NANTUCKET, Mass. -- The waves of tourists and suntan oil retire each winter, leaving behind what formerly was: a small island town 35 fair miles out to sea.

The cobblestone Main highway -- teeming with shoppers each summer - - is unoccupied The 80 miles of beaches ringing this crescent-shaped spit of sand are solitudeed also, except for scallop shells and squawking birds.

Offseason, the island's population shrinks to 10000 down from more than 50000 in August. The pace of the former whaling port dulls to a lull, and many of the inns, bed-and-breakfasts, workshops and restaurants are shuttered.

moreover that lull -- complete with haze horns and desolate walking paths -- is exactly what near people want. The slower pace and lack of tourists allows visitors to finish a more intimate sense of the island, and discover any of its secrets.

"There's no tourists," said Irene Barr, a day-tripper from Barnstable. "It's a great place to infer your thoughts and get away from phone ringing and people"

Warmed by dint of the Gulf Stream, Nantucket is onward average 10 degrees warmer than the mainland during the coldest month of the year. Ferries make eight daily trips to the island from Hyannis, and Cape Air and Nantucket Airlines exhibit three flights from Boston and 13 shuttle from Hyannis each day.

swings are available year-round, and offseason prices at inns can be les than half the price of the summer season.

Restaurants take uses staying open to feed the locals, giving visitors a filled choice of hardy chowders, pub larva and world-class cuisine. No reservations are indigenceed when the island is this vacant but local delights, such as bay scallops, are in season.

"You can still gain an incredible meal," said Kate Hamilton Pardee, director of the Nantucket Visitor Services, which withholds current lists of open restaurants and inns.

Without fighting lower classess offseason visitors can walk downtown to examine the ecclesiastical authority steeples and widows' walks atop mansions built by the agency of whaling captains.

"If you want to perceive what life is really like upon Nantucket, come now," said Molly C Anderson, library director of the island's Atheneum upon India Street. "We have the bustling, hectic summer if it be not that this is the real Nantucket."

The Atheneum, established in 1834, has 122,000 parts and other materials, but its history includes ties to a certain number of of the greatest Americans of the 19th centenary

"There is a certain thrill to know that Henry David Thoreau stood here; that Ralph Waldo Emerson stood here; and that Frederick Douglass stood here," said Anderson, stretching her arms across the stage of the building's Great Hall.

The three men all gave speeches in the upper range at the Atheneum. Douglass came forward Aug. 16, 1841, from recently made known Bedford, not long after he had escaped slavery.

The Atheneum also retains about 20 captains' logs from whaling ships during the island's whale-oil heyday, dating back to the 17th centenary Donning protective white gloves, visitors can transfer parchment-thin pages and read firsthand accounts of adventures forward the high seas.

It was here that author Nathaniel Philbrick researched his nonfiction account of the voyage that inspired Herman Melville's classic Moby Dick. Philbrick's work, In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex won a National work Award in 2000.

A scarcely any doors down, on Broad road the Whaling Museum brings Nantucket's seafaring past to life. The museum reopen in 2005 after a $14 million restoration added 28000 square feet

The centerpiece is the skeleton of a 46-foot seed whale that washed ashore in succession New Year's Day in 1998 Other galleries include studies of the influence of the Quaker religion forward Nantucket, the island's original Wampanaog Indians and the whaling industry.

Beyond downtown, the same of Nantucket's best-kept secrets is the island itself. More than 40 percent of the land has been permanently preserv as interpret space, much of which is dotted with public footpaths.

The Coskata-Coatue Wildlife harbor for example, is open year- orbed and offers 16 miles of walking trails by means of 200 acres of bayberries, beach dried grapes and windblown, miniature maritime oaks.

Back in town, Irene Barr, the day-tripper, is window-shopping forward Federal Street. She kicks a cobblestone forward an empty sidewalk and takes a intelligent breath of crisp, salty air.

"It's like taking a grade back in time," Barr said.

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