I live an ideal life many people only dream about. When I met my husband, he asked me if I ever thought of living in a lighthouse. Well not exactly, but the idea of remote living appealed to me. We first spent the summer of 2008 as caretakers for the Seguin Island and Lighthouse off the coast of Maine. Winter 2008, we lived on Fire Island when almost noone else was there and had to walk or ride bikes 2 miles each way to get to our car. The summers of 2009 and 2010, we were at a lighthouse offshore near Salem, MA. September 2010, we returned to Seguin as the first fall caretakers and have returned each fall to close up.

In winter 2010, we headed off to Deal Island, Tasmania!! We were dropped off and left alone on an island 60 miles offshore and picked up three months later – and it was fabulous. It was so good, we returned two more times for three months each (March- June, 2015 and 2019). Summer of 2013 found us at Five Finger Lighthouse in Alaska,  where we were surrounded by humpback whales;  and summer of 2017 we lived on Protection Island, Washington near the Strait of Juan de Fuca, a national wildlife refuge with us and 75,000!! birds, give or take a few.

The pandemic brought many changes but we still went to Seguin in the fall and then landed a Campus Host position at Acadia National Park on the Schoodic peninsula. We could drive to it and still be isolated, and I managed to go home and work as doctor every month. Six lighthouse homes, and a cabin in the middle of a seagull colony, and a townhouse on an old Navy base. How great is that!  In between our island sojourns, we cruised the northeast (with 2 cats) on our 32 foot catamaran, Water Lily – who now cruises the Chesapeake with new owners – and on Lake Champlain on little Boreas, a monohull. We are currently the proud owners of Sparky, a 1971, 15′ Starcraft Sprint with her original mercury 3 cylinder engine.

We generally spend the coldest months in our new(ish) home in the Adirondacks. I am a proud mother of 2 + 2 and Oma to 4 in the next generation; a semi-retired physician, acupuncturist, avid knitter, spinster, weaver, beekeeper, she shed builder and photographer. You can find me on Ravelry where I am known as One2KnitFar.