So many great places along the Maine coast, it's hard to decide which one -- or which locale -- to use. But Bass Harbor lighthouse is a gorgeous, remote, quiet spot I look forward to visiting whenever I'm on Mount Desert Island.
One of my favorite spots in one of my favorite states is Pemaquid Point in Maine. Very few are the trips to Vacationland when I haven't driven through New Harbor to the lighthouse on the rocks. As a kid, I ran and climbed along the rocks; as I got older, I explored more slowly, looking for new images and new angles to shoot to take the memories home with me.
It's one of Maine's most photographed lighthouses, and this shot is my imitation of the familiar images of the beacon.
Another rainy day on our vacation, but we went with it -- it was another day on the road for us. We left Bar Harbor and went to Freeport, but made stops at the Maine Lighthouse Museum in Rockland and Round Top Ice Cream in Damariscotta. In nicer weather, we would've made our way out to the breakwater and gotten a closer look, but on a cool and rainy day, there was no point in finding our way out there.
I'd always dreamed of getting to Lubec, Maine, the easternmost point in the United States. (And don't give me that crap about some remote Alaskan island being a few minutes -- or degrees or whatever -- over the meridian and technically being in the Eastern Hemisphere.) But it's about a five-hour drive from my uncle's near Wiscasset, where we'd always stay, so a day trip was out of the question. But with an extra day in Bar Harbor compared to last year, I decided we'd make the two-and-a-half-hour one-way jaunt up Route 1.
It was well worth it. Not only was it a gray day for the drive up and a rainy one for the drive back (which would have washed out any hiking/Acadia plans we might have had in clearer weather), but it was a chilly, blustery afternoon at Lubec, the kind of day for which beacons like this were needed.
We visited Bass Harbor Head Light for the first time last May, but I didn't know about the short path from the parking lot through the woods to get the view of the lighthouse from the rocks that is seen in so many photos. This year, I wanted to make sure I got that view. We decided to head down to the point after checking into the hotel in Bar Harbor, but I couldn't recall how far to the east the point was, so I didn't know how the light would be until we got there. Obviously, it wasn't good. Morning is the time to be at Bass Harbor, but I did what I could shooting into the late-afternoon sun.
Next time, I'll get my ass out of bed for the sunrise.
Made a quick trip to Twin Lights to see if I could get a U.S. Lighthouse Society Passport before we head up to New England this weekend (they didn't have any) and I took a few pictures on a gorgeous day.
Midday is never a great time to shoot at Twin Lights, because the view is to the east and so to get the front of the building, you end up facing the sun. So if you can't get there in the morning, that's when you have to get a little creative.
Twin Lights is my "hometown" lighthouse, the one I must have been to more than any other. It's got the views of the Atlantic, Sandy Hook and New York and the unique dual towers. Sandy Hook's lighthouse is nearby and another favorite, but with erosion having added at least half a mile of land between the lighthouse and the shoreline, its view is more land than shining sea.
Egg Rock Lighthouse sits at the entrance to Frenchman Bay on Mt. Desert Island in Maine. The sign posted along the lookout in Acadia National Park describes it best:
Since 1875, Egg Rock Lighthouse, perched on the craggy island before you, has helped guide vessels safely into Frenchman Bay. Among the hardships lighthouse keepers faced was fierce weather. Storm waves periodically swept over the low-lying island, washing away out-buildings, flooding the keeper's quarters, breaking windows and tearing away railings and walkways. In June of 1895, the fog signal sounded for 105 continuous hours.
The U.S. Coast Guard automated the light in 1976. Today its red beacon and mournful fog signal continue to warn vessels away from the dangerous ledges of Egg Rock.
[I considered this egg shot, too.]
Sitting out at the end of a jetty the length of three football fields, Spring Point Ledge Light guides ships into Portland Harbor. Exposed to the elements since it was first lit in 1897, it has become weathered over the decades. Yet it stands firm in the water through the Maine winters and the breezy summers as it has for more than a century.
I take a lot of photos of things that are old and decrepit, but when I saw that challenge, Alcatraz is what came to mind first. It must have to do with the islands sordid past, its history as a prison and its remote location subject to the elements in harsh San Francisco Bay. Of all the things I've photographed that I've qualified as ruins, things like the Goddard Mansion in Maine and the Kruger Mansion at High Point, New Jersey, are parks and settings that soften their decrepitude. There were other Alcatraz photos I thought about but then passed over simply because they also had flowers or a view of San Francisco in the background that softened the image.
Descending the spiral staircase of a lighthouse -- in this case, Pemaquid Point, Maine -- can be tougher than the climb. Pemaquid's a short tower (only 38 feet) isn't that bad, but climbing one of New Jersey's three sister towers -- Barnegat, Absecon (in Atlantic City) or Cape May, the shortest of which is 157 feet -- involves a rather simple, if arduous, climb to the lantern. You can pull yourself up with the railing and focus your eyes on the steps in front of you.
But going down, you slide your hand along the brass rail and watch the steps in front of you. The vertigo creeps in and the windows notched in the brick walls provide a good excuse to take a break and look out into the distance, giving your eyes a rest from the monotony of the winding stairs below you. It doesn't help that the wrought-iron steps have holes in them (easier to keep them clean and provide traction when wet, I'd imagine) so that you can see way, way down.
I want to marry a lighthouse keeper
And keep him company.
I want to marry a lighthouse keeper
And live by the side of the sea.
I'll polish his lamp by the light of day
So ships at night can find their way.
I want to marry a lighthouse keeper
Won't that be okay!
We'll take walks along the moonlight bay
Maybe find a treasure too.
I'd love living in a lighthouse,
HOW 'BOUT YOU?
The dream of living in a lighthouse baby, every single day.
The dream of living in a lighthouse,
the white one by the bay.
So if you want to make my dreams come true,
You'll be a lighthouse keeper too.
We could live in a lighthouse
The white one by the bay, hey hey.
Won't that be okay.
Yada tada ta ta ta.
"I Wanna Marry a Lighthouse Keeper," by Erika Eigen
So maybe the shining sun got to me on a bright day on Cape Elizabeth. The following, though, isn't mine ...
The rocky ledge runs far into the sea,
and on its outer point, some miles away,
the lighthouse lifts its massive masonry,
A pillar of fire by night, of cloud by day.
Even at this distance I can see the tides,
Upheaving, break unheard along its base,
A speechless wrath, that rises and subsides
in the white tip and tremor of the face.
And as the evening darkens, lo! how bright,
through the deep purple of the twilight air,
Beams forth the sudden radiance of its light,
with strange, unearthly splendor in the glare!
No one alone: from each projecting cape
And perilous reef along the ocean's verge,
Starts into life a dim, gigantic shape,
Holding its lantern o'er the restless surge.
Like the great giant Christopher it stands
Upon the brink of the tempestuous wave,
Wading far out among the rocks and sands,
The night o'er taken mariner to save.
And the great ships sail outward and return
Bending and bowing o'er the billowy swells,
And ever joyful, as they see it burn
They wave their silent welcome and farewells.
They come forth from the darkness, and their sails
Gleam for a moment only in the blaze,
And eager faces, as the light unveils
Gaze at the tower, and vanish while they gaze.
The mariner remembers when a child,
on his first voyage, he saw it fade and sink
And when returning from adventures wild,
He saw it rise again o'er ocean's brink.
Steadfast, serene, immovable, the same,
Year after year, through all the silent night
Burns on forevermore that quenchless flame,
Shines on that inextinguishable light!
It sees the ocean to its bosum clasp
The rocks and sea-sand with the kiss of peace:
It sees the wild winds lift it in their grasp,
And hold it up, and shake it like a fleece.
The startled waves leap over it; the storm
Smites it with all the scourges of the rain,
And steadily against its solid form
press the great shoulders of the hurricane.
The sea-bird wheeling round it, with the din
of wings and winds and solitary cries,
Blinded and maddened by the light within,
Dashes himself against the glare, and dies.
A new Prometheus, chained upon the rock,
Still grasping in his hand the fire of love,
it does not hear the cry, nor heed the shock,
but hails the mariner with words of love.
"Sail on!" it says: "sail on, ye stately ships!
And with your floating bridge the ocean span;
Be mine to guard this light from all eclipse.
Be yours to bring man neared unto man.
-- The Lighthouse
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I must've shot this lighthouse more than any other, with every camera I've ever owned, beginning with my first -- a Kodak disk point-and-shoot. It may be 500 miles from where I grew up, but I have to have photographed it more than Twin Lights or Sandy Hook, only minutes from home. But those, I'd visit on a whim, not always with a camera, and I always knew I could go back at any time to shoot them. At Pemaquid, I always start from behind the light, walking from the parking lot toward the tower, then make my way down to the rocks and around the point, covering it from every angle. It's a tradition, a ritual, one I expect to continue on future visits.
