The best ways to explore northern lighthouses: artifacts within an outdoor museum

By sea or by land, by boat or by van, there are a number of ways to explore New England’s oldest landmarks. Most lighthouses north of Boston are no longer publicly accessible. Thanks to some creative maritime masterminds these historical beauties are still accessible to get up-close and personal.

            “My father started the boat trips in 1969,”said Steve Douglass of a man whose main interest was in discovering if there were whales off the Gloucester shore.  A combination of a love for cetaceans and a dose of optimism created the Cape Ann Harbor tours out of Gloucester, Massachusetts.  “We started out with just touring Gloucester Harbor and then [we thought that] there would be a good bet in that people would want to circle Cape Ann,” Douglass whispered in the dark but buzzing Pleasant Street Tea Company shop tucked away down a side street adjacent to the harbor. His elbows were perched on the table while his neck retracted turtle-like into his bright red hooded sweatshirt as he continued to explain, “At that same time [my father] was interested in discovering if there were whales off shore.”  Thus there came the first whale watch organization out of Gloucester before the Cape Ann Harbor tours ever existed.

It all began with a boat that was bought off a local restaurant owner who originally won the boat on the game show, The Price is Right, and could no longer keep up with its maintenance. Today, Cape Ann Harbor Tours is a long established site seeing company that conducts harbor tours circling Cape Ann. Visitors, tourists, and residents of the North Shore can enjoy private charters, birthday parties, and business outings. The new 40 passenger vessel used for all outings today is a moving museum for Cape Ann Harbor Tour’s most popular offering; the lighthouse cruise.

Established in 1980, the Cape Ann Harbor Tours lighthouse cruise is offered daily at 2:30 PM during the summer months and it circumnavigates six of the Cape Ann lighthouses. All six remain in use for nautical navigation today. Guests are brought up-close and personal to the structures and are guided by a verbal historical narration.

The Boston Harbor Cruise company is also notorious for their lighthouse tour offering. “Our Lighthouse Cruise is very popular,” described Anne Marie Perez, Assistant Manager of the BHC Reservations Department. “There is a huge community of lighthouse fans out there and we have people travel from all over the world to come on our lighthouse cruises.”

Both lighthouse cruises offered by Cape Ann Harbor Tours and Boston Harbor Cruise bring passengers up-close and personal to the oldest pair of operating lighthouses that remain on Cape Ann. “The Thatcher’s Island  Twin lighthouses are known as the eyes of Cape Ann,” mysteriously whispered Douglass by way of explanation.

“Our main attraction for the North Shore Lighthouse Cruise is the Thatcher Island Twin Lighthouses,” said Perez in a brief phone interview. “Thatcher Island is the site of the only still operating twin lighthouses left in the entire country.” Her accent reinforced that this is a lighthouse cruise that departs directly from Boston Hah-bah.

“What’s ironic about the lighthouses on Thatcher’s Island is the granite there,” Douglass informed. “You would expect it to be from Rockport itself, however, through some labor disputes, the granite was actually taken in from Portsmouth, New Hampshire.”

Thatcher’s Island Twin Lighthouses stand 125 feet tall and are visible from 25 miles away. “The two lighthouses were built for triangulation purposes,” Douglass leaned on his elbows and continued to explain. “You line the two lighthouses up while out at sea and make one lighthouse, and then you are on the [correct] course.”

Boston Harbor Cruises offers two different lighthouse vessel tours. One features lighthouses of the South Shore and the second features lighthouses of the North Shore. Unlike the Cape Ann Harbor Tours Lighthouse Cruise, BHC’s North Shore lighthouse cruise lasts a little longer (five hours for one tour).  Similar to Cape Ann Harbor Tours, guests of the cruise are provided with a historical narration by Doug Bingham of the American Lighthouse Foundation. Another trait that distinguishes these two cruises is their schedules of operation. While Cape Ann Harbor Tours offers the lighthouse cruise daily, Boston Harbor Cruises only offers their lighthouse tour every other Saturday between the months of June and October.

The Straight Smith Island light and the Annisquam lighthouse are two other interesting lighthouses featured on the Cape Ann Harbor Tours lighthouse cruise. The Straight Smith Island Light was built in 1836 and has a green flashing light that directs sailors and captains into Rockport Harbor. The Annisquam Lighthouse is the final lighthouse visited on the journey. Built in 1801, it is the only lighthouse on Wigwam Point. “What’s interesting about this lighthouse is that it has a red sector if you are approaching from the Halibut Point area off of Rockport, and if you are seeing that red light, you are in-fact off course,” Douglass explains with raised eye brows. “You need to make sure that you are facing a solid white light as you make your approach into the Annisquam River.”

Those who are looking for a more intimate experience in discovering the lighthouses of the North Shore should seek the Cape Ann Harbor Tours offering. The vessel they use only carries 40 passengers at a time compared to the 150 passenger vessel that the Boston Harbor Cruise lighthouse tour uses. For both the Cape Ann Harbor Tours and Boston Harbor Cruise Lighthouse tour offerings, reservations are highly recommended.

“I always warn people about catching ‘the lighthouse bug’,” explained Jeremy D’Entremont, founder of New England Lighthouse Tours and Lynn Massachusetts native. “It’s a good contagious disease.” The heart and wholesomeness evident in D’Entremont’s voice echoed the 25 year passion he’s had for lighthouses and other elements of maritime life.

            D’Entremont runs a series of a different type of lighthouse tours. He takes his guests by van. The President of the American Lighthouse Foundations and author of nine lighthouse history books provides four different series of lighthouse tours from June to September. Over the past four years, D’Entremont has provided tours for the lighthouses of Portsmouth and Portland (NH) and the Pemaquid Point Light of Maine, with a shopping pit-stop included at L.L. Bean. New this year, D’Entremont is offering lighthouse tours of the Massachusetts North Shore with his Salem and Marblehead lighthouse tour series and the lighthouses of Cape Ann and Newburyport tour series.

“Being in the van and not a boat we’re going to a certain group of lighthouses that can be driven to fairly easily. It is a very different experience,” D’Entremont explained about the difference of a land tour from a sea tour in a lengthy phone conversation.  “I recommend that people do both. Most of the lighthouses in New England, the majority are actually off-shore, so they must be visited by boat—but there are many that you can drive to as well.”

For example, D’Entremont referenced Portland Head Light which has a museum and a keeper’s house. Guests can also venture inside the lighthouse and climb to the top.  “I consider that one of the many highlights of the tour and you can’t do that from boat.” According to D’Entremont there are some lighthouses that are better visited by land than by sea. “It’s an up close and personal type of tour opposed to viewing them by boat.”

But D’Entremont agrees that there are advantages to touring lighthouses by boat as well. “I like to see [lighthouses] from every possible angle. I’ve photographed a lot of lighthouses from land and sea and from the air too—I’ve done a lot of aerial photography… People who are interested in lighthouses should try to do both types of tours. ”

The 2011 season will mark D’Entremont’s fourth year of running the lighthouse tours via van. Similar to the lighthouse cruises offered by Boston Harbor Cruises and Cape Ann Lighthouse Tours, the typical demographic for guests are middle-aged and older ladies and gentlemen. Although D’Entremont does not keep records of statistical numbers and percentages of what types of people are seeking his tour, he has found one particular group of people who tour with him most often.

“I always get a lot of people from Texas every year,” D’Entremont laughed. “I’ve had more people from Texas than I’ve had from New England. I guess a lot of Texans like to come to New England for vacations.” D’Entremont has had one particular mother and daughter pair who have been repeat customers. They are from Houston.

Guests of D’Entremont’s van tours mostly find him through his website on the internet. “My site comes up pretty high in Google” stated D’Entremont by way of explanation. “I used to spend a lot of money on advertising when I first started, but I found that that didn’t pay off for me. No body found me that way.” D’Entremont also uses social media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook to promote his business.

No matter which van tour guests pursue, each of the four tour series last a full eight-hour day. For all tours, the van departs at 8:30 or 9:00 AM (depending on which tour) from the Hanover Street Garage in Portsmouth, New Hampshire and returns at 6:00 PM. “I’d say [the 8 hours] usually fly by,” D’Entremont laughed, “Usually.” D’Entremont can’t remember giving a tour that seemed like it was dragging personally. He hopes that is true for his passengers as well.

“You’re never on the road for more than an hour at one time and there’s usually a lot of

conversation” explained D’Entremont.  The conversations mostly surround the lighthouses viewed on the tour--but not always. “I just like to chat with people and see where they’re from and what they are interested in. I point out other things besides lighthouses too. I don’t want to overwhelm people with lighthouse information. So I try not to throw facts at people.”

D’Entremont understands that fact-overhaul can get boring fast. He will usually substitute the dates and the hard facts about the lighthouses for the human interest stories involving these lighthouses. For example, the stories about the keepers and their families. “I mean that’s what brings it all alive. I mean the structures are great, but it’s the people that bring it alive” said D’Entremont.

“I’ve had tours in the pouring rain” D’Enremont admits, “where people might not want to stay outside as much at some of the stops.” He strategically will fix this problem when it rarely occurs by throwing in some extra stops at some interesting shops. “You know, whatever or wherever people might be interested in.”

This April, D’Entremont is teaming up with Ron Kolak, founder of New England Ghost Project and co-author of Ghost Chronicles and A Ghost Day. Later this month they will be presenting their multimedia presentation at an event called: “Dining with the Dead: Haunted Lighthouses of New England” April 30. The presentation, paired with a dinner at Kittery Point, Maine’s restaurant Captain and Patty’s, will tell the stories and legends of New England’s haunted lighthouses. Some of the featured lighthouses will include Sequin Island, where lives a piano-playing ghost, and Owls Head which has been named America’s most haunted lighthouse.

D’Entremont will also be offering two series of ghost hunt cruises in July and September, departing from Rye, New Hampshire. The tours will visit the mentioned lighthouses as well as the Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouse (New Castle, NH), the abandoned prison at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, and Whaleback Lighthouse. The cruise will not dock at any of these sites.

By sea and by land, by boat and by van, there are multiple ways to explore the country’s oldest landmarks North of Boston. On the North Shore and beyond Cape Ann Harbor Tours, Boston Harbor Cruises, and New England Lighthouse Tours allow guests the access to get up-close and personal to these beautiful but sometimes paranormal structures.