Light My Fire!

Wood Island Light near Biddeford Pool

We’re spending the night in Biddeford Pool. This was pretty much our final stop before reaching Portland and civilization last year and I remember it very fondly. The fact that at this point this year our trip is not even half over yet allows me to see the quaint little harbor with new eyes, and even though the feeling is different this time around I think I love it even more. From our vantage point in the water the little town is a closely spaced cluster of summer cottages, while the rest of the shoreline is more sparsely populated and mostly wild. But of course, the view is further enhanced by that iconic symbol of public good and safety – a lighthouse.

Portsmouth Harbor Light

We have seen many lighthouses on this trip, some more beautiful than others, most with some kind of house attached or nearby, but all built for the same original purpose; a navigational tool for ships at sea. Largely obsolete with the utilization of GPS systems, lighthouses are kept nowadays mostly out of nostalgia. The feeling of safety and permanence evoked by a lighthouse is almost universal. Wikipedia sites an urban legend about a radio conversation between a U.S. naval vessel and an unidentified ship on a collision course. The naval vessel insists that the other ship change course, but the other ship continues to insist that the naval vessel do so. After the captain of the naval vessel identifies himself and demands a course change, the other party responds with, “I’m a lighthouse. It’s your call.” It’s amazing how easy it is to believe this story, even though it has been thoroughly debunked by many sources (including the U.S. Navy).

Baltimore Light

Our own Baltimore Light was advertised “For Sale” a few years ago, and last year Rick and I met up with one of the couples who bought it. They went in on the deal with another couple who thought the lighthouse would make for a cool vacation house – two bedrooms, a living room and a kitchen, all with a three hundred and sixty degree ocean view. I’d have to agree, the only caveat being you have to have a boat to get out there.

Stage Island Tower

At Biddeford Pool you get an added bonus – an ancient looking stone marker. This is technically not a lighthouse (no light), but at least during the daylight hours it would have been used navigationally the same way. I think it looks remarkably like the Shot Tower in Baltimore.

Boon Island

On our way to Biddeford, we passed what is reported to be the tallest lighthouse in New England, the Boon Island Light. The storms are so violent there that all the lighthouses they tried to erect got demolished. They finally succeeded in building this extra-tall long-lasting one in the 1800’s, but before that there were a lot of lost ships and lives. Boon Island is a tiny barren island, six miles off the coast of Maine. It is so named because it was seen as a “boon” granted by God by a small group of castaways shipwrecked there in the summer of 1682. A more famous shipwreck happened in the winter of 1710, when a British merchant ship crashed there. The fourteen crewmembers survived the wreck but had to endure a month's worth of cold winter conditions with no food or firewood. Imagine being stuck on an island within sight of land and not being able to communicate your plight to anyone on shore! Two of the crewmembers died of injuries they sustained during the wreck, and two more drowned while trying to get to shore on a make-shift raft. The remaining ten survived until they were rescued, but not before having to resort to cannibalism - a gruesome story that Rick's father loves to tell.

Determined to stick with our newly-renewed cocktail hour ritual, we sit out on the foredeck with our drinks and watch the sailing students in their cute little turnabouts. It has gotten rather cold now that we’ve made it to Maine and we had to really bundle up just to watch the sunset. It’s actually kind of a welcome change.

Our problems with the boat have mostly worked themselves out by now, but a couple weeks back when we were still having so much trouble we got some advice from one of our good friends Sally Swift. Sally is a very energetic and almost manically hard-working radio show producer, as well as a cookbook writer and foodie, who has a thing about lighting fires. I don’t really understand it, but Rick shares her love of pyromania and has many stories to tell from his childhood about fires that were started because of him – all accidental of course. Sally insists that to rid a new domicile of bad spirits one must burn sage and disperse the smoke all around. We have been desperate to rid ourselves of the spirit of Walter, the former owner of the boat, so we bought some sage and have been drying it for the past week in anticipation of a Walter-exorcism. It is finally ready for burning, so we put on some Stones music and crank up the stereo. Go Mick - “Get out of my life and don’t come back!”

Tomorrow we push on to Portland, Rick’s old stomping grounds. Let’s hope we are now Walter-free!

Portland Head Light