Photo of the Day: Boston Light, Massachusetts

Boston Light, Massachusetts, originally uploaded by nelights.

This photo was taken during the same sunset cruise as yesterday's view of Minot's Ledge Light. This was one of the most spectacular sunsets I've ever seen, and to be out in a boat near lighthouses at the time made it especially memorable.

Lighthouse of the Week - Dice Head Light, Maine

Castine, occupying a peninsula on the east side of the entrance to the Penobscot River, is a quiet town of only about 600 year-round residents. As shipbuilding and lumber traffic on the Penobscot River flourished, Congress appropriated $5,000 for a light station in May 1828. The site chosen was Dice Head, the southernmost point of the Castine peninsula. The spot is on land once owned by a family named Dyce. Although both spellings have often been used, the “Dice” spelling has predominated.

A conical rubblestone tower—42 feet tall from its base to the focal plane—and an adjacent one-and-one-half-story rubblestone dwelling were soon built, and a newspaper notice on November 5, 1828, announced that the light would go into service that evening. An octagonal wrought-iron lantern held 10 lamps and 14-inch reflectors, showing a fixed white light 129 feet above mean high water. The first keeper was Jacob Shelburne, a former sea captain.

The Lighthouse Board considered discontinuing the light around 1857, but instead major repairs were carried out in 1858. The entire tower was surrounded with a six-sided wooden sheath, and a fourth-order Fresnel lens replaced the lamps and reflectors. The wooden sheath was removed in the late 1800s. A 1,000-pound fog bell was installed in 1890, to be rung by hand in response to signals from passing vessels. A new hand striker for the bell was installed in 1897.

The lighthouse was mentioned in George Augustus Wheeler’s 1896 history of Castine. “A visit . . . can easily be made to the light-house at Dyce’s Head,” he wrote. “The gentlemanly keeper of the light, Mr. Charles Gott, will admit visitors to the tower at all reasonable hours except on Sunday.”

Edward T. Spurling, formerly at Avery Rock and Franklin Island, became keeper in 1911. After years of island life, the Spurling family’s move to the pleasant village of Castine was a welcome one. In a 1974 interview, one of the keeper’s six children, Beatrice Spurling, recalled life at Dice Head:

For us children it brought us an amazing new life. We could go to an organized school for the first time, and play with other children. Summer life on Dice’s Head was a new world for us. There were ladies with parasols, men in white flannels, buckboards to take them on quiet rides through the Witherle Woods and lots of chances for us to make pin money. I had a summer job at the “Dome of the Rocks” at 50 cents a day. And I could make extra money by going to the houses and helping out. I’ll never forget scrubbing bathtubs for 10 cents a ring.

When the Spurlings first moved to Dice Head, 11-year-old Beatrice attended the grammar school in Castine, which was within walking distance of the light station. It was the first time she had seen a schoolhouse after years of home-schooling at offshore stations. Beatrice took piano lessons for 12 years from Nina Macomber, a Castine resident. After a while, she was playing the piano at weddings and funerals at the local Episcopal church, and providing accompaniment for silent movies at the theater in town.

Maritime traffic in the area had fallen off, and in 1935 the light was discontinued. It was replaced by a skeleton tower closer to the shore. The keeper’s house and surrounding land became the property of the Town of Castine a short time later. In 1956, the lighthouse tower was turned over to the town.

The tower lost some chunks of mortar over the years. Inspectors found interior disintegration in the lighthouse that could have eventually caused serious problems. A method of repair called “slurry injection” had to be employed. This process involved slurry—clay or cement mixed with a liquid—being injected through holes in the tower. In 1997, the voters of Castine approved spending $98,000 to repair the lighthouse. Another $25,000 was approved in March 1998. The town also received $52,000 from the Maine Historic Preservation Committee, and Marty Nally, a contractor from the Campbell Construction Group, carried out the renovation.

The keeper’s house is rented by the town to help pay for the upkeep of the property; an artist, Nancy Carr, has lived in the house for over 30 years.

In September 2007, a windstorm or “microburst” toppled the skeletal tower that carried the navigational light. A few weeks later, the Coast Guard announced that it would install a new 300-millimeter optic in the lighthouse tower, making it an active aid to navigation again after 72 years in darkness.

Dice Head Light, a short distance from the Maine Maritime Academy, is easily reached by driving to Castine on Route 166 and turning right on Battle Avenue. The grounds are open to the public daily until sunset. A path leads around the tower, affording good views.

For more, see www.lighthouse.cc/dicehead/history.html

Lighthouses of Portsmouth and Portland Tour on Ooh.com

My company, New England Lighthouse Tours, is featured on a new website, ooh.com. I've announced the dates for my "Lighthouses of Portsmouth & Portland" tours for 2010, and I'll be announcing more tours soon. I plan to offer some new trips, including some 2-day trips to various parts of New England.

Photo of the Day: Minot's Ledge Light, Massachusetts

357_5720adj, originally uploaded by nelights.

I'm always drawn to offshore, wave-swept lighthouses like Minot's. I'm fascinated by the lives the keepers led at these places. Lighthouse keeping at these places was rough, physically and psychologically -- not the romantic picture many people have of the job.

I took this photo during a sunset cruise I narrated for the Thacher Island Association a couple of years ago. We left Gloucester, Mass., at 6 p.m. and got to Boston Light about sunset, and it didn't look like we'd have time to make it all the way to Minot's, a few more miles south, off the shores of Scituate and Cohasset. But the captain decided to go for it, and we still had some light left when we got to Minot's, as you can see. Because the light was so low, my photos were very noisy -- I had to reduce the noise in Photoshop in order to make this photo presentable. But I did very little manipulation of the color -- this is a pretty accurate picture of the beautiful sunset that evening. You can see the Boston skyline in the distance.

Photo of the Day: Pemaquid Point Light, Maine

pemaquid1, originally uploaded by nelights.

I never get tired of clambering round on the rocks at Pemaquid Point looking for good photographic views. I'd say it's one of the top 5 lighthouses in New England, photogenically speaking.

Wood Island Lighthouse Restoration Begins

I just received the following from the Friends of Wood Island Lighthouse, a chapter of the American Lighthouse Foundation. Wood Island Lighthouse is located off Biddeford Pool on the southern Maine coast.

Dear Friends of Wood Island Light Members,

As many of you know, work on the beautiful tower has begun. We have contracted with Stone Age Masonry to strip, repair and repaint both the inside and outside of the tower. Weather permitting, the tower will be completed this fall.

You will be able to watch progress via our webcams, two on island and one overlooking Wood Island Harbor from the mainland. This is our first attempt at running the webcam system ourselves, in the past it was in the hands of GOMOOS (Gulf of Maine Ocean Observing System). To view the webcams, go to the Wood Island Light website www.woodislandlighthouse.org and click on the webcam link at the top of the page, this will get you to the links for all three cameras. The webcams are sensitive to the numer of viewers online at the same time. If there are too many viewers, you may have some difficulty, if this happens, we suggest you try back later.

Thank you for your continued support as members.

Poll results

I ran a poll over the past week or so asking, "In the next year, which of the following are you most likely to do?" Here are the results: Visit one or more lighthouses within a couple of hours of home - 72%

Visit one or more lighthouses more than a couple of hours away - 81% Take a lighthouse cruise - 72% Take a lighthouse bus or van tour - 18% Read a book about lighthouses - 72% Read about lighthouses online - 81% Volunteer for a lighthouse organization - 27% These results aren't very surprising, but I am disappointed that only 27% said they'd volunteer. Granted, only 11 people responded, and that's not a very representative sampling. Still, I'd be more optimistic about the future of lighthouses if more people realized that preservation takes time and effort. I should have also included "Donate money to a lighthouse organization" as one of the options. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who professes to love lighthouses needs to do something for their preservation, whether it's a donation of time or money. It doesn't have to be a huge amount of money -- every dollar counts.