Beach Bums - Part 22

 Gay Head

Martha's Vineyard is an island off the coast of Massachusetts.  At one end of the island are the colorful Gay Head cliffs, named in the 1600s for the bright colors.  The cliffs, owned by the Wampanoag Native American tribe, were declared a National Landmark in 1966.

The cliffs are made of clay.  In the 1970s, LIFE photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt, a frequent visitor to Martha's Vineyard, took this photo on the beach below the cliffs.  This guy probably bathed in the mud pools that form at the bottom of the cliffs, which it's now illegal to do, but presumably it was allowed back then.

Eisenstaedt also photographed a group of amateur sculptors on the beach below the cliffs.  In case you hadn't guessed, the beach is clothing-optional.

They seem to be making little busts out of pieces of clay.

It's now illegal to remove clay from the cliffs, probably because too many people were doing things like these guys.

A number of famous people visited Martha's Vineyard as a retreat, and many of them frequented the nude beach at Gay Head.  This is Ray Harryhausen, famous for his stop-motion animation in movies such as Clash of the Titans.

A view of Moshup Beach with some nude beach-goers heading for the Gay Head cliffs in the background.

The far end of the beach is still clothing-optional, though unofficially so.

Some guys going for a swim au naturel.  In 1997, to honor the Wampanoag tribe, the nearby town of Gay Head was renamed Aquinnah, the original Native American name for the area, but I'm happy to say the cliffs are still called Gay Head.