BOSTON (AP) – Two beacons that guided New England mariners past treacherous shoals for generations are back in the spotlight.
The Nantucket Lightship, billed as America’s oldest and largest floating lighthouse, switches on its powerful beacon for the first time in 40 years in Boston Harbor on Friday evening.
(AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File). FILE – In this Oct. 13, 2013 file photo, Gay Head Light flashes a white signal in Aquinnah, Mass., on the island of Martha’s Vineyard. The lighthouse flashes alternating red and white beams of light.
Iconic Gay Head Light on Martha’s Vineyard is expected to follow suit Tuesday, with supporters holding a ceremony after the 160-year-old light completed its painstaking move from the edge of eroding cliff on May 30.
“It’s always exciting to hear about the relighting of a lighthouse,” said James Hyland, president of the New Hampshire-based advocacy group the Lighthouse Preservation Society. “To relight a darkened lighthouse tower is rather like breathing life into a human body that needs to be resuscitated. The glow comes back, and once again, all is well.”