Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
a good example of this is
Thunder Hole
in Acadia National Park where,
when a wave hits just right, air is trapped up under the rock ledge, and
compressed until the water begins to wane and the air sends out a mas-
sive column of spray with a loud “boom.”
In other spots, long narrow ledges across channels refuse to budge. This
has created “reversing” falls where, depending on the height of the tide,
which can range as much as 20 feet in Washington County, the water
foams, froths and falls in opposite directions twice each day. The most fa-
mous can be found at Pembroke on Cobscook Bay in Washington County,
in Damariscotta and in Blue Hill.
Coastal Sentinels
What is it about lighthouses that so fascinates people? Is it the romantic
notion of the self-reliant keeper and his family marking long days and
nights on isolated islands? Is it the altruistic notion of doing a job where
countless lives can literally depend on you?
Perhaps it is the tenacity shown by keepers like those on Mount Desert
Rock. Here, 25 miles off Mount Desert Island, winter storms each year
scour the granite ledge clean of every spoonful of soil. Still, keepers each
spring replace the dirt, a bushel basket at a time, most brought out by
friendly fishermen, so that a tiny garden can bloom again each summer.
In recent years there appears to be a resurgence in interest in these earli-
est of aids to navigation. Ironically, it comes at a time when all lights in
operation along the coast have been automated and many lighthouses
and stations have been handed over to the care of private organizations.
Most plan to operate them for many purposes ranging from inns to whale
watching stations.
Maine sports nearly 70 lighthouses and major beacons beginning in the
southwest at the New Hampshire border at Isles of Shoals and ending on
the border with New Brunswick at West Quoddy Head.
