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Sailing by Curtis Island Light


Good morning everyone. We had a great day aboard the schooner yesterday. We sanded most of the primer and we just await the warm sun to work its magic. Jen, Mary, and I will be appearing on a local television station in Augusta this morning on behalf of the Maine Windjammer Association. Then it is all back aboard to paint.

Curtis Island Light is one of the those backyard wonders we pass every week coming and going on each trip yet so seldom get a chance to actually visit. Memorial Day Weekend we will see this light before any of the others. Built in as Negro Island Light 1836 the island was renamed Curtis Island after a prominent summer resident of Camden, Cyrus Curtis, publisher of the Saturday Evening Post and other magazines and newspapers. The current tower actually dates back to 1896. The keepers house dates to 1889. Owned by the Town of Camden this park is open to the public and a family lives on the island all summer to welcome visitors. The past few summers a pair of bald eagles have nested in a pine tree just back from the shore. All this in our own back yard. Our Memorial Day cruise will not come soon enough.

Thanks to Keeper Ted Panayatoff for his historical notes.

Have a great day. Be well. Do good.

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