Light Hearted

Fort Point Lighthouse is in Stockton Springs, Maine, near the mouth of the Penobscot River. The light station was established in 1836 and the square brick lighthouse tower and attached keeper’s house that stand there today were built in 1857. Terry Cole was a keeper at Fort Point when he was in the Coast Guard for three years in the 1970s. The lighthouse is within Fort Point State Park, and Terry...

Listen to the podcast with this player: Fort Point Lighthouse is in Stockton Springs, Maine, near the mouth of the Penobscot River. The light station is part of Fort Point State Park and is adjacent to the remains of Fort Pownall, which was built in 1759 to guard against the French. Fort Point Light Station was established in 1836, and the 31-foot square brick lighthouse that stands today was buil...

Circa late 1800s photo of Pointe aux Barques Light Station, Michigan. U.S. Coast Guard Historian’s Office. Pointe aux Barques, on Lake Huron at the northeastern tip of the part of Michigan known as “The Thumb,” takes its name from a French phrase meaning “point of little boats.” A dangerous reef extending almost two miles from the point was a hazard to shipping traffic heading north along th...

In this special episode, Light Hearted host Jeremy D’Entremont interviews Tetiana Manziuk of Kyiv, the capital city of Ukraine. Tetiana — or Tanya, as she’s known — is the Alumni Officer at House of Europe, a non-governmental organization fostering professional and creative exchange between Ukrainians and their colleagues in European Union countries. Tetiana Manziuk at the...

Located on the historic waterfront of Rondout, New York, the Hudson River Maritime Museum was established in 1979 and is dedicated to the preservation and interpretation of the maritime history of the Hudson River, its tributaries, and related industries. The museum’s collections include historic vessels, objects, archival material, and art related to Hudson River transportation, industries,...

Listen to the podcast with this player: The Port of Galveston, Texas, which was established in 1825, eventually became the busiest port on the Gulf Coast and the second busiest in the country after New York City. Bolivar Point is at the southwestern end of the Bolivar Peninsula, marking the east side of the entrance to Galveston Bay. The first lighthouse on the point began service in late 1852. In...

The mission of the Noble Maritime Collection , an art and history museum on Staten Island, New York, is to present exhibitions and programs that celebrate the working waterfront of New York Harbor in the tradition of the distinguished artist John A. Noble. The museum is located on the former grounds of the retirement home known as Sailors’ Snug Harbor, on Staten Island’s North Shore. R...

Retired Rear Admiral Daniel R. May U.S. Coast Guard photo Retired Rear Admiral Daniel R. May graduated with a degree in ocean engineering from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in 1979. He spent more than three decades working on many lighthouse-related projects from the Carolinas to Maine. In part two of this two-part interview, Dan talks about more lighthouses he worked on, including Plum Island in N...

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. After time aboard the Coast Guard cutter Ingram , based in Portsmouth, Virginia, Dan became the ocean engineer for the Fifth Coast Guard District. He earned a master’s degree in ocean engineering from the University of Rhode Island in 1982. Retired Rear Adm...

Neil Hargreaves Listen to the podcast with this player: Neil Hargreaves was a light keeper for Trinity House in England from 1974-1988, and he is the founder and chairman of the Association of Lighthouse Keepers. Neil, who was originally from Lancashire, spent the first two years of his light keeping career on light vessels, mostly the Newarp lightship off the Norfolk coast in southwest England. N...

The growing limestone trade in Midcoast Maine led to the establishment of a light station at Owl’s Head, at the entrance to Rockland Harbor, in 1825. A tall lighthouse wasn’t necessary because of the height of the promontory. The light is exactly 100 feet above sea level. The present 30-foot brick lighthouse tower replaced the original one in 1852. Owls Head Lighthouse. Photo by Dominic Trap...

Photographer Mike Leonard lives in Yarmouth, Maine. His work is frequently seen in books, magazines, and on television, including the Weather Channel. His photos have also been seen on the National Geographic Wild program. He enjoys shooting landscapes and seascapes, including lighthouses, as well as nighttime scenes. Mike offers workshops on digital photography, which you can read about on his we...

Paradise Island in the Bahamas was formerly known as Hog Island. With an area of about 685 acres, it’s located just offshore from the city of Nassau. The island was bought by the A&P supermarket heir Huntington Hartford in 1959, and the name was changed from Hog Island to Paradise Island. The island was heavily developed and is best known today for the Atlantis Paradise Island Resort. Pa...

Tiny Cockspur Island is located at the mouth of the south channel of Georgia’s Savannah River. An unlighted day beacon tower built on the island in the 1830s, later converted into a lighthouse in the late 1840s, was destroyed by a hurricane in 1854. The 46-foot-tall lighthouse that still stands today was built in 1856 on the old foundation. The tower is made of Savannah Grey brick. Cockspur Lighth...

The Flying Santa is a tradition that dates back to 1929, serving to express gratitude to lighthouse keepers, Coast Guard personnel, and their families through Yuletide visits by plane or helicopter. The tradition was started by Captain William Wincapaw, a pioneering Maine aviator. To show his appreciation for the people at the lighthouses in Midcoast Maine, he loaded up his seaplane with packages...

Hilton Head Island, or simply Hilton Head, is a barrier island about 20 miles northeast of Savannah, Georgia, and 95 miles southwest of Charleston, South Carolina. The island features 12 miles of beaches and is a popular vacation destination. It’s also a golf mecca with 33 courses on the island. Harbour Town Lighthouse, South Carolina. Photo by Jeremy D’Entremont. The Harbour Town Lighthouse...

St. Simons is part of a cluster of barrier islands located off the southeastern Georgia coast. The original lighthouse on St. Simons was a 75-foot-tall tower that was built in 1810. When Confederate troops retreated from the area in 1861, they blew up the lighthouse so it wouldn’t serve as an aid to navigation for Union warships. The 104-foot-tall brick tower that stands today was built between 18...

The Isles of Shoals are a cluster of nine islands located several miles off the seacoast of New Hampshire and southern Maine. A lighthouse on White Island — the southernmost of the island group — went into service in early 1821. It was a stone tower, later encased with wood and shingled. A new 58-foot brick lighthouse tower was built on White Island in 1859, and the new tower was fitte...

Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, is the third-largest island on the East Coast of the United States, with a land area of about 96 square miles. Five lighthouses were established on the island, beginning with Gay Head Light in 1799. The Martha’s Vineyard Museum. Photo by Jeremy D’Entremont. The Martha’s Vineyard Museum was originally incorporated in the 1920s as the Dukes County...

Stannard Rock Lighthouse in Michigan was nicknamed by its keepers “the loneliest place in the world.” Coast Guard keepers called it “Stranded Rock.” Located about 24 miles from the nearest shore on Lake Superior, it’s the most isolated light station in the United States. The construction of the lighthouse took 240,000 tons of rock and iron, and took five years to complete. With a rotating second-o...

Port Clyde, one of the villages that comprise the town of St. George in Midcoast Maine, became a busy port in the 1800s with granite quarries, tide mills for sawing timber, shipbuilding facilities, and fish canning businesses. To help mariners entering the harbor or passing to the west into Muscongus Bay, Congress appropriated funds for a light station at Marshall Point in 1831 and a rubblestone l...

Ron Kolek Ron Kolek is the founder and lead investigator of the New England Ghost Project . His exploits have been documented in many newspaper, television, radio, and magazine articles. Ron is the host of the popular   Ghost Chronicles Radio series. He’s a well-known lecturer and he’s taught  Paranormal CSI at Northern Essex Community College. Ron has conducted paranormal inve...

Debbie Mueller is an award-winning oil painter whose light-filled, bold, and contemporary paintings have rapidly gained prominence in the community of New England artists since she began to paint in 2016. Debbie’s work is available through the Mast Cove Gallery in Kennebunkport, Maine; Kennedy Gallery in Portsmouth, New Hampshire; and the Cortile Gallery in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Debbie Muel...

This is part two of a three-part interview with the Irish lighthouse keeper and author Gerald Butler. Gerald is the co-author of the classic book The Lightkeeper: A Memoir . A third generation lighthouse keeper on both sides, Gerald Butler went to work for the Commissioners of Irish Lights in 1969. He spent most of his career as an assistant keeper on the Bull Rock, Fastnet Rock, Old Head of Kinsa...

Gerald Butler, a third-generation lighthouse keeper on both sides of his family, joined the Commissioners of Irish Lights in 1969. He spent most of his light-keeping career as an assistant keeper on Bull Rock, Fastnet Rock, the Old Head of Kinsale, and Mizen Head lighthouses. During his 21 years of service he also served on 17 other lighthouses. Gerald Butler Gerald was born in 1950 in southwester...