Star Island cruises are back

After a four-year hiatus, the Isles of Shoals Steamship Company will again offer cruises to Star Island aboard the M/V Thomas Laighton this summer. The Steamship Company recently announced that it has renewed its contract with the Star Island Corporation and will resume the cruises beginning on Sunday, June 7.

The Star Island Stopover Tour will be available every Sunday, Wednesday and Friday throughout the summer. The company’s steamship leaves Portsmouth Harbor at 10 a.m. en route to Star Island, one of the nine land masses comprising the Isles of Shoals. Passengers can spend several hours on the island before the M/V Thomas Laighton picks them up again at 3 p.m., returning to the harbor around 4:45.

People hoping to spend more time on the island can sign up for one of the Star Island Corporation’s personal retreats and stay overnight at the Oceanic Hotel. The corporation brings more than 4,000 people to the island each year for conferences and retreats.

The Steamship Company also offers other cruises around Portsmouth Harbor and the Isles of Shoals. It has not offered the Star Island Stopover Tour since it let its contract with the Star Island Company expire in 2005. The new agreement allows the Steamship Company to cancel tours due to bad weather or low passenger turnout.

“It’s the beginning of a new era under a contract that works for everybody,” Steamship Company owner Robin Whittaker said in a press release.

Tickets for the tour range from $28 to $38. For more information, visit www.islesofshoals.com or www.starisland.org.

inaugural Oyster River Festival comes to Durham

The first ever Oyster River Festival will bring a full day of music, arts and athletics to Durham on Saturday, May 9. The activities begin with the Bobcat Bolt, a 5K and 10K race in memory of two former Oyster River High School students.

The race, which begins at the high school at 9 a.m., is being held in memory of brothers Nathan and Joshua Hardy, both former students and standout athletes. Special Warfare Operator Chief Petty Officer Nathan H. Hardy was killed during combat in Iraq in February 2008. His older brother Joshua died during his senior year at Oyster River in 1993 after an 18-month battle with brain cancer.

U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen will kick off the race at the starting line. Proceeds from the $35 entry fee will go toward construction of a youth center for the school district. For more information or to register for the race, visit www.bobcatbolt.com.

Following the race, the festival gets underway at the Oyster River High School field, located at 55 Coe Drive in Durham. A total of 10 musical acts will perform throughout the day, beginning with the Oyster River Middle School Jazz Band at 9 a.m. and ending with a set from local legends Groovechild at 4:15 p.m. At 10:30 a.m., Codfish Aristocracy will perform the official festival song, “The Oyster River Running Through,” written by Sam Southworth.

At least six area artists will exhibit during the festival, and a number of businesses and non-profit organizations will have booths. There will also be children’s activities and other special events, including an Oyster River High School lacrosse game against St. Thomas Aquinas at 11 a.m. Food vendors will also be on hand.

Organized by the Oyster River Alumni Association, the festival is free of charge, although donations to the Oyster River Youth Initiative will be accepted. For more information on the festival, visit www.oralumni.org.

Hampton Beach gets trashed

It’s not yet summer, but Hampton Beach is already getting trashed. And not in the good way. Environmentalists are concerned after a few hot days last week resulted in rampant pollution across New Hampshire’s most visited beach.

Temperatures topped 90 degrees in parts of the state on April 28, spurring residents and tourists to head to Hampton to sunbathe in the sand. But many of those visitors left behind countless plastic bottles, aluminum cans and other pieces of garbage that threatened to make their way into the ocean.

The Blue Ocean Society for Marine Conservation, based in Portsmouth, quickly organized an emergency beach cleanup for May 3. But environmentalists worry that such irresponsible behavior is a portent of things to come as summer approaches. Only days earlier, numerous volunteers had spent hours clearing litter from Hampton Beach.

“We just had about 300 volunteers out on Hampton Beach last week for cleanups associated with Earth Day, and they removed almost 700 pounds of litter from the beach,” Blue Ocean director Jen Kennedy said in a press release. “I was upset to learn the beach was in such sad shape already.”

Kennedy said beachgoers regularly leave behind bottle caps, straws, broken glass, cigarette butts and other items that are harmful to both marine wildlife and people. The Blue Ocean Society regularly invites volunteers to pick up litter at area beaches and also hosted a cleanup of Jenness Beach in Rye on May 2.

Hampton Beach resident Linda Gebhart, a member of the town’s Beautification Committee, alerted Kennedy to the beach conditions last week. She said she was appalled by the amount of litter she found on the shore.

“It is heartbreaking to see so many plastic and glass bottles everywhere,” Gebhart said. “After all the work we just put into the Earth Awareness Week, I am so upset.”

For information on future beach cleanups, visit www.blueoceansociety.org.