STAR ISLAND – Moments after the Thomas Laighton ferry docked at Star Island yesterday, several passengers disembarked and headed straight for the wooden rocking chairs overlooking Gosport Harbor.

Some came to escape the chaos of their lives on the mainland.

Others came to tour the rocky island they haven't seen since they were young.

"I have a lot of good memories spent here," Jennifer Pistole, 24, of Newfields said after she and her father arrived with more than 200 other invited guests for the 2nd annual Seacoast Day on Star Island.

The event was an open house, held as a way to draw attention to an island six miles off the Rye coast that for years wasn't open to the public.

Star Island Corp., a nonprofit that has owned and operated the island as a religious and educational conference center for nearly a century, is now allowing the public to visit the island on "personal retreats" that include day stops and overnight stays in the historic Oceanic Hotel.

The corporation hopes to turn the island into a summer destination.

"We're far enough out so you can feel a real psychological and physical separation from the mainland. It's very quiet, it's very simple, it's very renewing," said Vicky Hardy, chief executive officer of Star Island Corp.

Beginning June 19, the Isles of Shoals Steamship Company will begin ferrying visitors to the island on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. The ferry, known as the Thomas Laighton, will operate through mid-September.

With a gentle breeze blowing across the calm water, yesterday's special guests spread out across the island, one of nine in the Isles of Shoals.

Susan Thorner of South Berwick, Maine, was among dozens of volunteers who offered guided tours of the island, which features walking trails, colorful gardens, an 18th-century cemetery, and stone buildings such as a small chapel built as a meetinghouse in 1800.

Like many others who come seeking peace, Thorner enjoys sitting and quietly watching the sea.

"I want to listen to the gulls. I want to listen to the sea," she said.

The island also includes several cottages and the Oceanic Hotel, the largest building on the island. The hotel's lobby, writing room, "Pink Parlor," and dining hall allow guests an opportunity to experience life during the Grand Hotel Era. Rocking chairs line the porch that wraps around the building. Past visitors include Impressionist painter Childe Hassam and writer Nathaniel Hawthorne.

During her visit yesterday, Pistole spent some time in a rocking chair reading a book.

Pistole said she used to visit the island as a child with her brother and her father, Thomas, who has directed religious conferences.

Though it's been nearly 10 years since she last visited the island, Pistole still remembered listening to ghost stories there while sitting around the old cemetery.

The last time George and Sue Olson were on the island was the late 1980s. The Olsons spend summers in Exeter and winters in Florida.

"It's been an amazing eye-opener," Sue Olson said after touring the island. "We have a jewel so close and people forget about it."

Yesterday's visit gave the Olsons a chance to meet up with Keith Noyes, the former public works director from Exeter who for the last year has lived on the island from April to September while working as the island's director of operations and maintenance.

Star Island visitors board the Thomas Laighton, docked at Star Island during Star Island Seacoast Day yesterday. (JASON SCHREIBER)

Sitting in his 40-year-old rustic cottage near the rocky shore, Noyes explained how the island is self-sufficient, generating its own power through diesel generators and a new wind turbine and producing drinking water from the sea.

"Everyone on the island has a common cause to make it work," he said.