Sankaty Head Light (black and white), Nantucket Island, Massachusetts
This photograph of Sankaty Head lighthouse was made on a clear May morning in 1991.
In service for over 150 years, the Sankaty Head Light sits on a high bluff at Nantucket Island's southeastern edge. The tiny village of Siasconset (locally pronounced 'Sconset) is close by, as is a public beach.
To the east and south lie the wide, cold North Atlantic ocean. To the west and north lie the moors of southeast Nantucket, consisting of dense oakbrush thickets and a few cranberry farms.
An ever-shifting glacial moraine of sand and rock, Nantucket Island seems lost in time in some ways, but is always shifting with the pressures of the mighty sea. Sankaty Head Light is so close to the bluff now that it is in peril. Recent efforts at stabilizing the shoreline there have bought it some time, delaying for a bit the inevitable move of the lighthouse.
Photo location: Sankaty Head, Nantucket Island, Massachusetts.
