For a three hour tour (Part 1)...

The almost three hour tour we took that truly started our lighthouse obsession didn't end up like Gilligan's Island though.  As I mentioned before, even though we had seen the Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse we didn't see another lighthouse for a few years. 

While Mike and I were visiting my family like we normally do in the summer, we decided to go on a lighthouse tour provided by the Bar Harbor Whale Watch Co.  We would highly recommend this tour to anyone visiting the Bar Harbor area and we even want to go on the other tour to Baker Island that they provide. 

The tour took us to see five lighthouses in the area on August 19, 2009.

 Don't we look excited to go on our tour!!

First up is Bear Island Lighthouse.

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Bear Island Lighthouse is located offshore of Northeast Harbor, Maine and it is on Acadia National Park property. 

Up next was the Great Duck Island Lighthouse.

An interesting tidbit about the Great Duck Island Lighthouse is that it is owned and maintained by the College of the Atlantic, a liberal arts college on Mount Desert Island.  The college also owns the Mount Desert Rock Lighthouse and uses both of these lighthouses to aid in study for their ecology and botany programs.  Students even get to live in the keeper's house on Great Duck Island. That would be fun (for a little while anyway)!

The final lighthouse that we "saw" on this tour was Baker Island Lighthouse.

Hmm, you can't see anything? Here let me help you:

Here is a cropped picture, where you can see the top of the lighthouse.  Unfortunately, how the trees have grown on Baker Island makes it so that you can barely see the lighthouse from the water.  This is why we hope to go on the other lighthouse tour provided by the Bar Harbor Whale Watch Co. or maybe even an aerial tour of Baker Island and other lighthouses in the area provided by Scenic Flights of Acadia. 

What are some lighthouse tours that you would want to go on?

Next up:  the rest of the tour!