Customer Reviews

Bay Beacons: Lighthouses of the Chesapeake Bay

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This is an excellent book on the existing lighthouses of the Chesapeake Bay, and a must-have for anyone interested in lighthouses.

A chapter is dedicated to each of the remaining lighthouses of the bay, and is teaming with historical facts surrounding the lighthouse in question. Along with wonderful, large color photographs of the lights as they presently exist, many chapters include additional black and white prints of the lighthouses in earlier days.

The introduction is very good and gives a nice overview of the lighthouses and their history in the Chesapeake Bay, and sets the stage for what follows in the book. A general map of the Chesapeake Bay showing the location of each of the lights is also included.

The text is very informative about each lighthouse covered, right down to the dollars spent on each light, the approval process for those monies, construction, light keepers, daily life at a lighthouse...and in some cases, the move of a lighthouse to another location in order to save the light from destruction or for posterity. Other facts are discussed as well, many unique in nature. Did you know that nuclear power was once used in a lighthouse? It was, and in the Chesapeake Bay.

A framed section with identification information on each lighthouse is also included in each chapter, detailing such items as date of establishment, lighthouse position, light characteristic, height, range, etc.

All in all, I don't think you could ask for more in a perfect book on Chesapeake Bay lighthouses. This book will make any "wickie" very happy.

I can't believe this book is out of print! The Robert DeGast book is the one which should be out of print. While it has good textual information, the photography in it is simply horrible. The photography is this book is much better. It also expands on the information in the DeGast book. It is a crying shame that this book is not published anymore as it is probably the most definitive text on the lighthouses on the Chesapeake Bay with excellent photography.