Light Hearted

Julie Barrow at Pigeon Point Light Station, California. Courtesy of Julie Barrow. California’s iconic Pigeon Point Lighthouse , located on the central coast between Santa Cruz and San Francisco, has been guiding mariners since 1872.  Today, the historic light station is managed by California State Parks, and the former keepers’ housing serves as a youth hostel. The lighthouse has been closed...

Harry Duvall and Dan May. Photo by Jeremy D’Entremont. Harry Duvall enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard in the 1960s and trained as an electronics technician. After graduating from college, he returned to the Coast Guard as a civilian employee based at the district engineering office in Boston. For well over 30 years, he coordinated all the lighthouse automation and modernization projects for t...

A day beacon (or daybeacon) is defined simply as an unlighted nautical sea mark, serving to aid navigation during the day. The U.S. Coast Guard maintains many modern day beacons around the country, but the subject of this episode is the historic day beacons of New England. Some of them date back more than 200 years, and they have fascinating stories to tell — tales of shipwrecks, pirate...

Little Mark Island—about one acre in size—is in Maine’s Casco Bay, near the town of Harpswell. On the island is a 50-foot tall, stone, pyramidal tower that was built in 1827. It’s known as the Little Mark Island Monument.  It wasn’t built as a lighthouse—it was originally intended to serve as a day beacon or day marker to aid local navigation. In 1927, a navigational light was added to the to...

Sally Snowman and her husband Jay Thomson on the occasion of Sally’s retirement on December 15, 2023. Photo by Jeremy D’Entremont. At the end of this year, Sally Snowman will retire after 20 years as keeper of Boston Light in Massachusetts, America’s oldest light station. As a civilian employee of the Coast Guard, she oversaw tours and managed the Boston Light Augmentation Program, und...

In 2003, the active duty Coast Guard personnel that had been assigned to Boston Light on Little Brewster Island, America’s oldest light station, were reassigned to meet the needs of Homeland Security. Sally Snowman was named the new keeper. She became the first woman keeper in Boston Light’s long history, which dates back to 1716. Sally Snowman (U.S. Postal Service photo by Dan Afzal) Boston Light...

RADM Dan May, USCG (ret.) Photo by Jeremy D’Entremont. Daniel R. May graduated with a degree in ocean engineering from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, in the class of 1979. During his time as the ocean engineer for the Fifth Coast Guard District, Dan worked on lighthouse projects from Delaware Bay to the Carolinas. Dan eventually moved to Civil Engineering Unit Provi...

Stamford Harbor Lighthouse in May 2023. Photo by Jeremy D’Entremont. The entrance to Stamford Harbor in Connecticut, on Long Island Sound, is obstructed by treacherous ledges. One of them is known as Chatham Ledge. The construction of a lighthouse to mark the dangerous location was completed in 1882. The finished tower, 3,600 feet from shore, was a fairly typical cast-iron “sparkplug&#...

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, North Carolina. Photo by Jeremy D’Entremont. Alisa Hardin-Lapp andi “Light Hearted” host Jeremy D’Entremont. Photo by John Havel. Cape Hatteras Lighthouse on North Carolina’s Outer Banks is one of the most visited lighthouses in the world. Offshore from Cape Hatteras is a dangerous twelve-mile long sandbar called Diamond Shoals. Countless shipwreck...

Bodie Island Light Station, North Carolina. Photo by Jeremy D’Entremont. Bodie Island (pronounced “body”) is a long, narrow peninsula at the northern part of the Outer Banks in North Carolina. The original Bodie Island Lighthouse was built in 1847 in a location that is now underwater. That tower was abandoned in 1859 due to its poor condition. The second lighthouse was an 80-foot...

Old Cape Henry Lighthouse, Virginia. Photo by Jeremy D’Entremont. There are two lighthouses at Cape Henry in Virginia, marking the south side of the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay. The older of the two lighthouses was built in 1792, and it was the first federally funded public works project of the newly formed United States government. It was authorized by President George Washington and ove...

The Povyshevs family with their 34-foot sailboat Ellls in the background. L to R: Valeriia, Anna, Stanislav, and Darina. This episode is dedicated to the simple pleasure of visiting lighthouses. The guests in the first interview are Anna Povyshevs (also known as Anna Fox) and her daughter Valeriia (Val). Anna is originally from Ukraine and Val was born there. Along with Anna’s husband and another...

The first-order Fresnel lens from Cape Charles Lighthouse in the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Virginia. Photo by Jeremy D’Entremont. The collection of the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Virginia, includes a vast art collection, boats from around the world, a first-order Fresnel lens from Cape Charles Lighthouse, and much more. Among the museum’s projects has been the cons...

The historic twin light station on Thacher Island, off the east side of Cape Ann in Massachusetts. is one of the small number of lighthouse sites in the U.S. that are designated National Historic Landmarks. In 1771, there were nine lighthouses in operation in North America. The original twin lighthouses built on Thacher Island in 1771 were the first built to mark a dangerous spot rather than a har...

O Camiño dos Faros , or The Lighthouse Way, is a 125-mile hiking route in Galicia in the northwest part of Spain. The route passes nine lighthouses, as well as forts, fishing villages, beaches, and important landmarks in the portion of the coast known as A Costa da Morte. National Geographic called the Lighthouse Way an under-the-radar gem, and The Telegraph called it “one of the 50 best adventure...

The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum campus (courtesy of Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum.) The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels, Maryland, explores and preserves the history, environment, and culture of the entire Chesapeake Bay region, and makes this resource accessible to all. The museum’s collections include historic watercraft dating back to the 1860s, maritime paintings and prints,...

The peninsula known as Cape Blanco, the most westerly point on the coast of Oregon, was named by Spanish explorers because of its high, light-colored cliffs. The reefs around the cape were a hindrance to navigation, leading to the establishment of a lighthouse in 1870. The brick tower, 59 feet tall with its light 256 feet above mean high water, still stands. It’s the oldest continuously operated l...

The Door County Maritime Museum in Sturgeon Bay features the 10-story Jim Kress Maritime Lighthouse Tower. The Door County Maritime Museum in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, is dedicated to showcasing the area’s rich maritime roots. The museum’s exhibits spotlight fishermen, ship captains, skilled craftsmen, inventors, and lighthouse keepers, among others who have contributed much to the area for centuri...

Christian Fiedler Solargraphy – also called solarigraphy – is a niche form of pinhole photography that stretches single exposure images to an extreme exposure length. Relying on homemade cameras, darkroom paper, and a small pinhole instead of a glass lens, solargraphs allow an image to be captured over months or years. The path of the sun and the landscape appear directly on the surface of the pap...

In addition to their nature cruises, Bar Harbor Whale Watch in Maine runs regular sightseeing cruises that go near several of the local lighthouses. For years, pre-pandemic, the company also ran occasional all-day lighthouse cruises that passed close to as many as 15 or 20 lighthouses. An annual July cruise was known as the Grand Slam cruise. The cruises were put on hold during the pandemic. The t...

Burnt Coat Harbor Light Station on Swans Island, Maine, is one of the sites participating in Maine Open Lighthouse Day. Photo by Jeremy D’Entremont. Maine Open Lighthouse Day is a popular annual event that’s sponsored by the U.S. Coast Guard, the Maine Office of Tourism, and the American Lighthouse Foundation. It attracts between 15,000 to 18,000 visitors each year and offers the gener...

Slip Point Lighthouse, courtesy of Slip Point Lighthouse Keepers The Strait of Juan de Fuca is a body of water the Salish Sea’s main outlet to the Pacific Ocean. Clallam Bay, Washington, is an indentation on the south side of the strait, about 30 miles from its mouth. Slip Point is at the east end of Clallam Bay. A fog signal was established at Slip Point in 1905. A lantern was hung on the f...

Pilot Island, Wisconsin. Photo by Tim Sweet, courtesy of Friends of Plum and Pilot Islands. Porte des Morts, from the French meaning “door of the dead,” is a strait that connects Lake Michigan to Green Bay, Wisconsin. A lighthouse was established in the strait on Plum Island in 1849, but it was determined to be too far west to aid shipping. It was replaced by a lighthouse and fog signal on Pilot I...

Jeff Gales and Augie This episode features a wide-ranging conversation between Light Hearted host Jeremy D’Entremont and Jeff Gales, executive director of the U.S. Lighthouse Society (USLHS). Topics include the early history of the USLHS, the Society’s move from San Francisco to Point No Point Light Station in Seattle, the passport program, overnight stays at the Society’s properties a...

This episode features two re-edited interviews from past years, Karen Zacharuk and Chris Mills. For more than 15 years, Karen has been the keeper at Cape Beale in British Columbia. Cape Beale is one of 27 lightstations that remain staffed on the coast of British Columbia. As keeper, Karen maintains the navigation equipment and buildings, monitors weather and sea conditions, and watches for emergen...