Maine Musings: Lighthouses

LIGHTHOUSES

Maine is home to more than 70 lighthouses, nearly all of them built in the 19th century. That number is not surprising when you consider the state’s rocky coast which zigs and zags in and out creating harbor after harbor, some very narrow.

I’ve been pondering why lighthouses have such an appeal and why we like to visit them.  I certainly don’t have a definitive answer, but perhaps it’s partly history and partly the novelty.  Lighthouses are generally old and they remind us of a time when seafaring, sans GPS, was dangerous and fraught with potential peril.  There is also the novelty of contemplating living in a tower at the edge of the sea—isolated and possibly lonely with only immediate family for company.

Over the years, we have gazed upon, but not visited up close, The Cuckolds (1892, 1907), off Cape Newagen at Southport, and Hendricks Head (1829, 1875) on the other end of Southport at the mouth of the Sheepscot River. The Cuckolds Light is now a fancy inn containing two suites.  You can stay in one or rent the entire island (both suites) for a different kind of getaway that includes boat transport to and from the lighthouse!

Cuckolds Light (www.lighthousefriends.com)
Cuckolds Light (www.lighthousefriends.com)

 

 

Hendricks Head from commons.wikipedia.com
Hendricks Head (commons.wikipedia.com)

Last summer, we took a boat out to Burnt Island in Boothbay Harbor to tour that lighthouse and its keeper’s house.  This 1821 lighthouse with adjoining keeper’s house stands tall on a small patch of green. Local folks purchased it several years ago and created an education center.  They now offer occasional tours for the public as well as overnight programs for school kids.

Burnt Island Light from www.lighthousefriends.com
Burnt Island Light (www.lighthousefriends.com)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While in Portland several weeks ago, we explored Fort Williams Park with my cousins and paid homage to the iconic Portland Head Light, which dates to 1791 and guards the Portland Harbor. It’s a lovely park with native plantings and tables for picnics on the grounds.

Portland Head Light
Portland Head Light

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last week, we finally (I say finally since we’ve been coming to Maine a long time) drove over to the next peninsula and down to Pemaquid Point to visit the Pemaquid Point Light. This lighthouse was commissioned by President John Quincy Adams in 1826, opened in 1827, and then due to defects was re-built in 1835. In good weather, its light can be seen from 14 nautical miles away.

Pemquid Point Lighthouse from www.ighthouseratings.com
Pemaquid Point Lighthouse (www.ighthouseratings.com)

You can climb a winding narrow staircase to the top of the tower and also tour a small museum in the light keeper’s house.  In the museum we saw models of fishing boats, tools and nets for fishing, an old-fashioned lobster trap and a series of lobster buoys strung up high along the wall. Fourteen lighthouse keepers served this lighthouse until it was automated in 1934. The rocks on this stretch of coast are particularly dramatic and you can understand why ships ran aground and appreciate the critical importance of the light.

Were my mother still around, I would have mailed her at least one postcard from this summer’s explorations.  She appreciated architecture and was particularly interested in lighthouses and suspension bridges.

Maine Musings: Gardens

One of the pleasures of being in midcoast Maine is visiting the Coastal Maine Botanical Garden just outside Boothbay Harbor.  It’s a glorious place and in high summer is a riot of color, shapes and scents.

Day lily
Day lily
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Cone flower
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Day lily variety, I believe

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Balloon flower
Balloon flower
Field of daisies
Field of daisies
Fish in the garden
Fish in the garden
Flower box in the Pollinator Garden
Flower box in the Pollinator Garden
Dahlia Detail
Dahlia Detail
Sunflower
Sunflower

Maine Musings: Restaurants & Reading

LAZY DAYS

Being in Maine promotes being lazy—watching the lobster boats circling to check their traps, observing the patterns of sun and shadow on the garden lilies, letting the hours slink by without any pressure. It’s also getting together with friends, shopping at the weekly farmers’ market, and exploring new venues.

This week we returned to Portland for lunch at the Blue Spoon with new Florida friends. The café is small and serves good food that is more interesting than the usual sandwiches and burgers. It’s located on Munjoy Hill in a section of the city we hadn’t previously discovered. After lunch we walked down the hill to the waterfront and strolled along the Eastern Promenade. Stately old frame houses with widows’ walks and porches line the opposite side of the promenade, several with condo for sale signs. A tempting prospect.

We also had dinner at the Newagen Inn, the place we came to stay twenty-five years ago for the first of our annual visits. The inn has changed over the years and become more elegant—the latest addition an impressive portico and re-worked entrance drive. What hasn’t changed, however, is its lovely location on the point of land known as Cape Newagen. The casual restaurant has a cozy bar area and a porch-like section with big windows perfect for admiring the view to the sea. You can also sit outdoors on a wrap around porch with umbrella tables. We all enjoyed the excellent halibut on a bed of risotto studded with sundried tomatoes and greens. The chef, a tall young woman in a ball cap, came out to chat and enthusiastically shared her plans for future menus.

BEACH READS

With the relaxed pace of these weeks comes the desire to indulge in good stories, novels that are absorbing with convincing characters and a strong narrative arc. Here are two I read this week, one definitely better than the other.

Haven Lake by Holly Robinson. This novelist is also a ghost writer and she was new to me. Set in the Berkshires in Massachusetts, this is a novel of complicated family dynamics—an estranged mother and daughter (both adults and the mother a sheep farmer), an unhappy teenager, and a surgeon fiancé who seems obsessed with his work. Add to this a mystery about two deaths that occurred twenty years ago and you have an intriguing slew of emotions. I thought the portrait of 15 year old Dylan was especially well drawn.

Silver Bay by Jojo Moyes. I like Moyes’ work and thought Me Before You was an exceptional novel due to its subject matter. I also enjoyed The Last Letter from Your Lover. This novel is one of her earliest and it shows. It isn’t as tightly constructed and, to my lights, could have used more focus and more editing. That said, it’s set in Australia at a hotel that attracts tourists who come to see the whales and the dolphins on Silver Bay. When a developer has plans to build a new hotel and retail complex, there is immediate conflict between the outside firm and the local whalesavers and environmentalists.

Maine Musings: Food, Film & Finch

After the intensely bright hot Florida sun, mid-coast Maine’s gray skies, cool temperatures, and spotty rain showers yesterday were a relief. Portland on Friday before the cloud cover was weakly warm with enough sun to say summertime. Thanks to my cousins, we visited the iconic Portland Head Light for the first time after lunching at the Good Table in Cape Elizabeth.

Later we meandered the cobblestone streets of Portland’s Old Port browsing in familiar and new shops from the Paper Patch to Abacus to Sherman’s Books, all the while hearing in the background the screechy honk of the ever present seagulls.  I know there are seagulls on other shores, but they always seem particularly present here.

PORTLAND DINING

Dining in Portland was also a taste treat! The restaurant scene has expanded, and the city has been featured in every food magazine I know. We enjoyed dinner and the ambience at Vignola one night and had a superb meal the next in the back room known as David’s Opus Ten.  Plain David’s, the front of house, was crowded and noisy so we were glad we had opted for the small back space with its short menu of small plates. Especially noteworthy were the butter poached lobster on a crispy risotto cake, the tuna tartare, and the Serrano ham and manchego cheese plate with mellow warm black olives.

AT THE MOVIES

Earlier in the week, we went to see “Testament of Youth.” This new film, based on Vera Brittain’s 1933 memoir of the same name, is a grim and unvarnished depiction of the horrors of war, in this case WWI.  Some of you may recall that Masterpiece Theater did an adaptation of this work some years ago.

The film draws a stark contrast between the exuberance of youth and young love in the green English countryside and at university before the war, followed by the dirty gray and brown of death and destruction on the battlefield in France. Brittain left university to sign on as a volunteer nurse. This was a romantic, idealistic time and I don’t believe as many youths today see war as quite the adventure these men did.

WHAT I’M READING

Of course, I had to read Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman. I read To Kill a Mockingbird in high school (haven’t re-read it, I regret to report) and saw the film so for me Gregory Peck will forever be Atticus Finch. That said, Watchman is a worthwhile read. The writing is enjoyable, there are some touches of humor,and one gets a different picture of Maycomb, Alabama.  I found it to be a coming of age story for Jean Louise (aka Scout). At 26, one might say she is a bit old, after having lived in New York for seven years, to become disillusioned with her father, but so be it.  Other than that, she is quite believable and carries the book. Henry, her putative fiancé, is a bit flat.  Calpurnia, their servant, is a warm and sympathetic character while her uncle Jack, an eccentric doctor, provides counterpoint to her father. Atticus is here, but is no longer the perfect man and perhaps as a segregationist more realistic for the times.

Note that there are no photos this time due to a less reliable Wifi signal which I hope gets better!