Menhaden were back in Cuttyhunk harbor this summer, and that was good news to Capt. Bruce Borges. Pogies, as they are called, make great bait for catching striped bass. As a lobsterman, Captain Borges, 74, hasn’t seen much good news along the waterfront in recent years. There are fish out there but it’s a different story for lobsters, and that has made this summer especially challenging for Mr. Borges, who calls himself the last lobsterman on Cuttyhunk.

For 134 years the modest cedar-shingled post office of Cuttyhunk has served as a lifeline to the mainland for this isolated community. Now with the U.S. Postal Service facing declining revenues and cutbacks, the Cuttyhunk branch faces the prospect of closure, along with 43 other post offices in Massachusetts identified in a nationwide review.

Father Thomas C. Lopes had never been to Cuttyhunk until last Sunday morning.

Traveling on a 26-foot patrol boat owned by the Dukes County Sheriff’s department, Father Lopes crossed the water to the small chain of Elizabeth Islands to offer a Mass in the Union Methodist Church on Cuttyhunk.

A Vineyard native, the 72-year-old priest had served on Nantucket from 1991 to 2000, an Island hop of a different nature. He is now retired.