The Sakonnet Point Light

In the past, we’d pull on the riding boots and leathers, steering the motorcycles out towards Little Compton. It’s open spaces are sprinkled with farm stands that the local growers sell apples and produce to the families that live out here past the noisy cities of Fall River and Newport. In the fall, it’s squash and pumpkins. The small towns of Tiverton and Little Compton are a mix of “swamp yankees” and the rich folk that escape to the country and buy up the old farmhouses, quietly changing the weave of fabric of the place they have chosen for it’s old New England roots. Still, it’s a quiet and sleepy area, and the folks like it that way.

If you follow the road to it’s end, past the farms and carefully manicured lawns of colonial homes, you reach the end of land. In the distance sits a lighthouse on the edge of the Atlantic.

History

This lighthouse was almost destroyed after being battered by the infamous Hurricane Carol of 1954 that savaged Rhode Island. It was saved from being scrapped by local Rhode Islanders and restored to former glory. It’s now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, cared for by a dedicated local non-profit group.

I traveled out to Sakonnet Point many times years before my lighthouse photo list came into being. I couldn’t recall the lighthouse. Seeing it now from the shore, I knew I had to paddle out for a shot at it. If you look at the picture online, it’s not very close to the shoreline! It would be a twenty minute paddle at least, and I needed a calm day and no current. My little twelve foot inflatable kayak would have to carry me out and back.

I pulled it from the trunk, unrolling it and carefully pumped it up to the the proper inflation. I carried a Fuji camera that day. I think it was an X-pro model, but can’t remember which one. I had test driven it that weekend as a rental, but didn’t end up buying it. The chip created beautiful saturated images, but the flesh tones for people looked off to me, and that was my bread and butter at the time.

I made my way out of the little harbor and around the Point towards Rhode Island Sound, passing dinghies tied to buoys by the local fisherman. It was perfectly calm. I made good time reaching the light. Being at sea level gives you a unique perspective (literally wave top level) and I wasted no time squeezing off several frames. I wouldn’t get a choice of vantage point, beggars couldn’t be choosers. A seabird or two passed by and a cormorant viewed me suspiciously from a rocky perch near the light. A passing front appeared to move in. i left the birds to search for their lunches and I headed for shore. I made it back to my car before that light sprinkle was able to reach the Fuji, or me.

Note: The photograph of the lighthouse is unedited except for color correction and minimal cropping. No artificial manipulation has been done, and is as I viewed it that day.