The Lighthouse at Pemaquid Point

This post is dedicated to my friends Cathi (who has been our virtual tour guide to Maine) and Ann (whose encouragement and whose love of lighthouses I cherish).

Today we went to New Harbor to take an evening cruise with Hardy Boats out to Eastern Egg Island to look for puffins -- a subject for another post...

A few miles further down the peninsula from New Harbor stands the Pemaquid Point Lighthouse, probably the most famous of Maine's 65 lighthouses. It's the one depicted on the Maine State Quarter. The lighthouse was commissioned in  1827 and rebuilt in 1835 due to poor workmanship. The light was originally fueled by sperm whale oil.

The lighthouse is 39 feet tall with walls of stone that are three feet thick at the bottom tapered to two feet at the top.

The original circular staircase was made of dressed pine, but it has been replaced with a metal one --

From one side of the tower you look down at the granite and pegmatite rocks. The little house was built to hold the oil for the lamp and the tower house the fog bell.

This is the original Fresnel Lens that lights the still-functioning lighthouse (it comes on automatically at dark every night). The light flashes every six seconds and can be seen for 14 miles.

There are two 1000 watt bulbs in the light. When one burns out, there is a mechanism that automatically switches to a new bulb.

Forry decided it was a bit easier to go down the narrow steps backwards --

 As we left the lighthouse, we saw this lovely schooner in full sail in the distance --