MISQUAH — The wind turned Wednesday, as promised, and the town, which had spent nine days believing the forecast as an act of collective discipline, was rewarded in full. The smoke thinned through the morning, the far shores of the Chain reported back in for duty by noon, and by evening the sky had returned to its usual summer arrangement — blue, unremarkable, and suddenly the most admired thing in the county.

The reopening proceeded with the ceremony such occasions deserve. At the Daybreak, Pat Reinholt cracked the front windows at 12:00 sharp, a gesture she had promised the Klatch and performed to a full house; the room applauded, briefly, and then complained about the draft, which Pat has entered as evidence that things are back to normal. Porch furniture across town was recalled to active duty following inspection. Box fans stood down. The fan on Third Street was repatriated to its porch of origin accompanied by a thank-you note and a plate of bars, closing the week’s most closely watched custody arrangement to the satisfaction of both parties and the mild disappointment of the neighborhood.

Harold Aas, 81, was restored to his bench at the fish-cleaning station Thursday morning by the same coalition that had relocated him indoors, an escort he described as “unnecessary and appreciated, in that order.” He has resumed supervision of the cleaning tables and reports the fish caught in his absence “held the line, barely.”

And at dusk Wednesday, with the first clear sunset in more than a week going down plain yellow over Big Pelican, boats began drifting out of bays and channels and falling in behind one another — nine of them by most counts, running slow and aimless in a loose line, nobody leading, nobody following exactly, in the manner of the old spontaneous parade that predates the official one by decades. Ald. Lloyd Bunde, grand marshal of July’s sanctioned version, was observed on the water conspicuously not leading it, a distinction witnesses say he maintained with real discipline. The line dissolved at dark, unorganized to the end, having celebrated nothing in particular except the air, which was reason enough.