I think my husband is coming around to my veiw of Lighthouses. He is more into cars and motorcycles. We were watching the bikers buildoff this week on TV and the two bikers met at Split Rock Lightlight. I always notice when they show a lighthouse on any show. But I was surprised when he noticed and said " what a neat looking lighthouse". Maybe he will want to visit more lighthouses, and I won't have to feel like I am dragging him along with me. It's more fun if you can enjoy them together.

My husband didn't like the idea at first. Then we started going to lighthouses and he found the history and the lights were interesting. So he has come to enjoy going.
He likes freighters so we compromise. One vacation it's all lighthousing. The next we do freighters and throw in a couple lights. So it works out for both of us.
My son was "cutting "lighthouses...they're dumb, what's so great. My husband looked at him and said "you'd know if you actually went to see one once. They're really neat.
There's hope for your husband too! It definitely is more fun having him along.

He seemed to be more interested during the trip to Florida then when we went to Maine. He climbed with me and was real interested in the history. The lens really got his interest. But we split up our vacations to do things that interest both of us.

If your spouse is interested in history, many forts are near lighthouses.

My Spouse, Susan, is most interested if it is a new place we are going to, much less interest if we have been there before.

St. Augustine is full of history and Bill (my husband) had an Aunt and cousin who lived there. They took us on the full tour, they even had a parking spot for us down by St. George Street. Castillo De San Marco was real neat. The next day we found Mayport Lighthouse, rode the fairy across St. Johns River and went to Amelia Island. We visited the fort there and found out from the blacksmith how to find Amelia Island Lighthouse. We stopped on the road so I could get a picture from across the marsh. Bill really enjoyed watching me take a second look at the gator sign just off the road and watching me high tail it back to the car. It said something about not feeding or stepping on them. I did not even want to see one, much less feed or step on one. The day after that we went to Ponce De Leon Lighthouse. I had to let my knees and nerves have a day between climbing the two lighthouses. But it was great and such a great view. If I can ever get it figured out how, I'll post some of my pictures

I got interested myself through photography because one of the few things you can take a picture of from a boat that is at all interesting is a lighthouse. Otherwise you have to be real close to shore to get anything interesting in your picture other than water and sky. Bob (my husband) is ex-Navy, so of course he's seen lighthouses and he wanted to do anything he could to increase my interest in sailing.

We've also seen a lot of forts in our travels - they also tend to be around water, and also therefore around lighthouses.

Of course you don't generally get to climb lighthouses from a sailboat trip, and my knees won't take the climb very well in any case.

The last two winters we've gone south by car.

In 2004-2005, we saw

• Cape Henry/Fort Story
• OBX - Currituck, Bodie, Fort Raleigh, Hatteras, Ocracoke
• Fort Fisher, Price Creek Light (and Oak Island and Bald Head from a distance)
• Ponce, Fort Mantanzas, St. Augustine Light, Castilo San Marco
• Fort Taylor, East and West Martello Tower, Dry Tortugas (Fort Jefferson), and Key West Lighthouse
• Boca Grande lighthouse
• Fort Caroline, Mayport Lighthouse, Fort George, Amelia Island Light
• Hunting Island, Fort Pulaski, Fort Mitchell and the Lemington Range Rear Light
• Fort Macon, Cape Lookout
• Jamestown, Fort Monroe and the Mariner's Museum at Newport News

The 2005-2006 trip was somewhat less lighthouse/fort intensive, and we just did

• El Morro, and Fort Cristobal in San Juan, PR
• Fort Amsterdam, Willemstad, Curaçao
• California Lighthouse, Aruba
• Pensacola Light and Fort Barrancas
• Fort Morgan, and Mobile Point Lighthouse
• Punta Torrecilla Light in Santo Domingo
• Fort Gaines and Sand Island Light