July / August 2009

On September 12, 52 select lighthouses in Maine will fling open their doors to visitors, courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard. No word if they’ll be serving wine and cheese.

It is a sort of amnesty for those of us who have already broken into lighthouses to view the hypnotic swirls of their wrought-iron staircases.

Yes, I have a confession to make.

But first, let’s agree on a few things for your reading safety:

We do not recommend Boon Island as a getaway. The Mobil Travel Guide gives Boon Island zero stars. There’s that whole cannibalism brouhaha that Ken Roberts railed about in his book of the same name… And, whatever you do, do not try to go inside Boon Island Light.

I’m still wondering why I did it. As a “year-round summer person,” was I simply trying to see a part of Maine I’d never seen before? To what lengths will we go to see something new?

On a foggy morning that would later burn off to a pure blue sky, I headed out to the lonely lighthouse–Maine’s tallest at 137 feet–in my 13-foot Boston Whaler.

Six miles off the coast of Maine, Boon Island is so far beyond the pale that it isn’t even painted white for tourists. It’s natural granite, the color of a shadow. The rocky ledge on which the tower stands is so mad with gulls there isn’t even any graffiti in this inhospitable place. The whole time I had the feeling of sneaking into the back door of a theater.

But hey, the brass lock on the hasp of the oval door was open.

Stepping inside, I was delighted to see lovely red brick, with a rope for a rail swirling up to the top and a wrought-iron spiral stair that would be the envy of New Orleans.

On the way up was a series of window landings covered with dead songbirds in vibrant blues and greens. Where did they come from? Was this where all the canaries disappeared to when they escaped from their cages?

At the top, there’s a final door. When I opened it, a blast of air almost knocked me over. I didn’t dare go outside to risk a view from the rusting iron railing that circumscribes the light.

From this height, vertigo sets in, and the top of the lighthouse seems to move and whip around like the CN Tower in Toronto. I flattened to my chest and grabbed for the deck to keep from being thrown off. It was my mind that was moving, of course, but believe me, the sensation is more real than IMAX. Then, if you haven’t fled yet, you pull yourself up to the railless eye of Boon Island. What you feel now is fear. You are certain that the lighthouse is going to lean over so far it will topple to the ground out of its hatred for your intrusion. A rush of Mount Agamenticus and dizzy hotels sears through your head, with waves almost Bermuda blue and green. I think I remember seeing gray Navy paint and a sound-powered phone connected to nowhere.

Boon Island tops the list of places we should never go in Maine. We should never go there, again and again. Except on September 12.

>>Visit lighthouseday.com.