Elinor DeWire is an award-winning author, editor, public speaker, educator, and blogger based in Connecticut. She began her writing career with freelance stories for a Florida newspaper, and in 1987 she published her first book, Guide to Florida Lighthouses. Since then, she’s authored some twenty books about lighthouses. From 1991 to 2000 Elinor wrote two regular… Continue reading Light Hearted ep 130 – Author Elinor DeWire; new Mid-Atlantic lighthouse postage stamps

Point Cabrillo is in Northern California, about midway between San Francisco and the border with Oregon. The point is named for Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, an explorer who sailed the California coast on behalf of Spain in 1542 and ‘43. It took a series of shipwrecks in the vicinity and pleas from mill owners and mariners… Continue reading Light Hearted 129 – Jen Lewis, Point Cabrillo, CA

Use this player to listen to the podcast: Chris Overcash is the Senior Engineer and Deputy Director of Coastal Resilience for EA Engineering, Science, and Technology in Maryland. Chris has more than 20 years of experience in the fields of coastal, civil, and environmental engineering. His background includes projects in marine and coastal design, dredging,… Continue reading Light Hearted ep 128 – Chris Overcash – Climate change & Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse, MD

The lighthouse at Piney Point in Maryland –14 miles from Chesapeake Bay up the Potomac River — was established in 1836, making it the oldest lighthouse on the river. The conical brick tower is 26 feet tall. In 1980 the property was transferred to St. Mary’s County. The County licensed the St. Clement’s Island-Potomac River… Continue reading Light Hearted ep 127 – April Havens, Piney Point, MD; Lee Radzak, Split Rock, MN

Listen to the podcast using this player: Ireland’s Hook Lighthouse is the oldest continuously operating lighthouse in the world. The tapering headland of Hook Head is in the southwestern part of County Wexford, on the southeast coast of Ireland below Dublin. In the fifth century, a monastery was established on the peninsula. According to tradition,… Continue reading Light Hearted special edition – Noel Lynch, Hook Lighthouse, Ireland

Listen using this player: Eighteen-acre Rose Island, about a mile offshore from Newport, Rhode Island, has a commanding position in Narragansett Bay’s East Passage. The waters around Newport were busy with passenger steamers, fishing boats, and freighters in the mid-nineteenth century. On July 20, 1868, Congress appropriated $7,500 for a lighthouse on the island, and… Continue reading Light Hearted 126 – Brian Tefft, Rose Island in Newport, RI

Boon Island is located in southern Maine, about six miles from the nearest point of land. The popular writer Celia Thaxter once called the small rocky island “the forlornest place that can be imagined.” It was the scene of many shipwrecks over the years, including the wreck of the British Nottingham Galley in December 1710,… Continue reading Light Hearted ep 125 – Kirby Eldridge, Boon Island, Maine

Use this player to listen to the podcast: In the late 1860s, the hazard known as the Middle Ground Flats — opposite the City of Hudson, New York, in the Hudson River —made navigation in the busy shipping route treacherous. An appropriation of $35,000.00 was approved by Congress in 1872 to build the Hudson-Athens Lighthouse.… Continue reading Light Hearted special edition – Van Calhoun, Bob Taylor, & Bill Palmer, Hudson-Athens Lighthouse, NY

Listen to the podcast with this player: The Bonavista Peninsula is on the east coast of Newfoundland, Canada, separating Trinity Bay to the south from Bonavista Bay to the north. At the peninsula’s northeastern tip is the headland known as Cape Bonavista. It’s believed that the navigator Giovanne Caboto, better known as John Cabot, may… Continue reading Light Hearted ep 124 – Marlene O’Connell Russell, Cape Bonavista in Newfoundland, Canada

Listen to the podcast using this player: Wave-swept Bell Rock Lighthouse, about five miles from Arbroath in southeastern Scotland, was designed by the engineer Robert Stevenson of the famous Stevenson family of engineers. The granite tower, first lighted in 1811, was built so well that none of it has needed to be repaired or replaced… Continue reading Light Hearted ep 123 – Caroline Taylor, Signal Tower Museum and Bell Rock Lighthouse, Scotland