Choosing A Date

2012: Project "Funding of the Plumbing"Help us FINALLY fund and finish our renovation project!

During this reconfiguring of electric and plumbing and installation of new kitchen and bathroom amenities, the Goose Rocks keeper's experiences will be more "camper style" stay with only oil lamps and flashlights for lighting, bottled water for drinking, Weber grill for cooking, cooler for refrigerator, and down comforters for warmth. Goose Rocks DOES have a composting toilet. If you're up for the quasi-camper challenge, enjoy Goose Rocks' four comfortable and well-furnished upper level rooms and three catwalk decks while the basement-keep is mostly "off limits" during restoration, which we hope to have completed by the end of June. All donations for 2012 go toward the completion of our bathroom and kitchen installations.

Please note: your boat transportation from North Haven to the lighthouse, and overnight visit at Goose Rocks, includes up to four people (additional guests are permitted with prior permission with a maximum of 8. Please add $100 for each additional keeper (up to 8 maximum with prior permission). See the overview of various months to decide when YOU would like to visit:

MAY: May visits are often, by necessity, based on "short-notice" arrangement. May is a month which is often cold, and weather and sea conditions will dictate our ability to safely transport visitors to Goose Rocks. If you want to visit in May, please be flexible with your dates or willing to book last-minute as conditions allow; please note that the Memorial Day weekend (Saturday through Monday) is a premium weekend.

JUNE: June can be one of the brightest or wettest months of spring, sunny in the afternoons but sometimes cold at night and foggy in the mornings. This is often considered the "renter's season" on North Haven, with restaurants opening to their full summer schedule and a fresh season of social and cultural events offered at Waterman's Community Center on North Haven. This is a great month, if you can roll with the changing weather or enjoy smaller crowds, to make Goose Rocks a unique vacation destination --or even "side diversion"—during a visit to Midcoast Maine.

JULY: July features a full complement of North Haven's longtime summer crowd. Rockland's Blues Festival and other local events make for lively crowds. In North Haven, three restaurants and a deli stay busy with the expanded population, and Waterman's offers daily activities for children while featuring a theatrical, musical, or cultural event almost every evening. The Farmer's Market can be found at the ball field every Saturday morning, and a reservation is usually required to ensure your car gets on a specific ferry. The weather is typically in the 70s and 80s, with long sunny days, cool evenings, and brilliant sunsets.

AUGUST: August is the most popular month for vacationing in Maine. The weather is at its best: sunny and clear, with most days in the 80s or 90s and evenings balmy and mild. Rockland's Lobster Festival and Jazz Festival, and the onslaught of travelers and tourists to the Penobscot Bay region can make accommodation on the mainland nearly impossible, so this is an ideal time to enjoy an extended visit to Goose Rocks, or use it as an overnight stop if sailing or boating through the Fox Island Thoroughfare to the Acadia region. The sunrises and sunsets as viewed from Goose Rocks are absolutely amazing, and stargazing (especially watching meteor showers!) is highly rated by previous keepers.

SEPTEMBER: September can be a really gorgeous time of year; the crowds have died down but the parade of sailboats and windjammers is still in full effect in the Thorofare. Cooler mornings and evenings give way to bright sunny days in the 70s, but the water is often still warm enough for a swim. The sunsets are still rosey, and moon- and star-gazing is often at its best this time of year.

OCTOBER: Like May, October can be a tempermental month for weather, with nor'easter winds and even hurricanes possible as climate cools. Still, it is an extremely mild and beautiful time of year to enjoy the changing seasons, colorful foliage, and fading light, so for the adventurous who enjoy solitude we try to accommodate flexible visitors as long as weather and sea conditions permit. The broad scarlet sunsets are some of the most colorful of the year. Stays beyond the third week of October are discouraged due to quickly-changing conditions.

See our "Frequently Asked Questions" for all the details about getting to Goose Rocks and how Beacon supporters are able to avail themselves of a Goose Rocks visit.