The Elusive Lighthouses of Maine

We told people we were going to Maine to photograph lighthouses. Really, when you think of Maine, what comes to mind (besides lobster)? As we drove up from Massachusetts, it seemed like we no sooner got into Maine than we spotted the Cape Neddick or Nubble Light. We stopped, got out, and took some pictures.

Mark bought a cap to keep the sun off his head and out of his eyes. The shop was staffed with volunteers who had apparently never rung up a cap before. They did it this time with great difficulty. In fact, they were joking that Mark might not actually need the cap after they completed the transaction because the sun might be down by that time.

But we were excited and anxious to continue on up the shoreline. We hugged the coast as much as possible. In many instances Route 1 moved away from the coast so we had to drive back to the coast to go to Kennebunkport, Wells, and other towns along the coast. We were planning to drive as far as Bucksport, which is not that far from the Canadian border, so we thought we'd see lots of lighthouses on the way. Truth is we didn't see another one all the way to Bucksport.

Well, that was a bit of a disappointment. But not to worry, Mark found a little magazine in the hotel lobby "Discovering Maine's Lighthouses & Harbors". We learned that Maine has about 70 light houses. But when we left our hotel in search of them, we forgot to take the magazine with us. Rather than return to the room to get it, Mark found a lighthouse museum listed in the attractions on our GPS - in Rockland. A lighthouse museum will be housed in a lighthouse, right? We were very surprised when the lighthouse museum turned out to be housed in an ordinary building. A bit of a disappointment, but we went on a cruise of the harbor and much to our delight, there was the Rockland Breakwater Light and we sailed close enough to take some photographs. We could also see the Rockland Harbor Light, although it was a bit distant - too distant to show up in a photograph.

I remembered from my scan of the magazine that there was a lighthouse near Bucksport at Stockton Springs. With a little luck, we were able to find the Fort Point Light on our way back from Rockland. (We were not successful in finding the Celtic Festival in Belfast - no matter what the sign says, so finding the lighthouse was a big plus.)

The next day we set off with the magazine in hand. However, even with the magazine and the maps and the directions, we were only able to find one - the Portland Head Light. (There were supposed to be four others in this general area, but we couldn't find them.)

After the Portland area, there were supposed to be two more on the south coast, Wood Island Light and Goat Island Light. They were shown on the map as being near Biddeford Pool and Cape Porpoise. We never found either of them so we're guessing they must be on islands that aren't quite visible from the shore. But we had to get back down to Newburyport, Massachusetts to check into our B&B around six, so we gave up looking for lighthouses in favor of looking for lunch.