Where it is and what it is
Southport Island hangs off the bottom of the Boothbay peninsula, separated from it by Townsend Gut, a tidal channel narrow enough to throw a stone across. The swing bridge at the Gut is the only road on or off. It opens for masted boats, which means that once or twice an hour in summer the traffic on Route 27 simply stops and everyone watches a sailboat go through. Nobody seems to mind.
The island is about five miles long. There is no downtown. The settlements — West Southport at the top, the village at Cape Newagen near the southern tip — are clusters of houses, a church, a library, a post office. Almost all the commercial life is seasonal, and a good deal of it shuts down by mid-October.
Be clear-eyed about the scale of what is here. Across the whole town, our directory holds five rated places. Five. That is not a gap in the data; it is an accurate portrait of an island where the main activity is looking at water. If you want restaurants, galleries, and a choice of bars, you want Boothbay Harbor across the bridge, and you should plan on driving back over for dinner most nights.
Hendrick's Head Beach and the lighthouse behind it
Hendrick's Head is the island's one genuine destination, and the two listings there tell a useful story on their own.
- Hendrick's Head Beach — 4.6 from 140 reviews, 22 Salt Pond Road. A pocket of coarse sand and cobble facing the Sheepscot River mouth, with a tidal bar, warm shallow water on the flood, and a view straight out to open ocean.
- Hendrick's Head Lighthouse — 3.6 from 36 reviews, 42 Light House Lane. A full point lower, from a quarter of the visitors.
The gap between those two numbers is the single most useful fact in this article. Hendrick's Head Light is a private residence. It is not open, there are no tours, and the lane to it is not a public approach. People who arrive expecting a lighthouse visit rate it accordingly. People who arrive expecting a beach with a very good lighthouse in the frame rate it 4.6.
Go for the beach and treat the light as scenery. It sits on a spit just north of the sand, white tower and red-roofed keeper's house, and from the beach at the right hour it is one of the better lighthouse photographs on this stretch of coast — no fence, no parking lot, no gift shop in the shot.
The catch is parking. The lot at Hendrick's Head is tiny and access is tightly controlled in high season; check the Town of Southport's current rules before you build a day around it, because the restrictions change and they are enforced. Off-season and shoulder-season, the problem mostly evaporates.
Burnt Island Light
The island's other light, Burnt Island Light (4.6 from 91 reviews), stands on a small island off Southport's eastern shore at the entrance to Boothbay Harbor. It is state-owned, and the Department of Marine Resources runs living-history programs there in season, with costumed interpreters playing the keeper's family.
You cannot drive to it. Access is by boat from Boothbay Harbor, and the tour operators that work the harbor — Balmy Days Cruises (4.7 from 175 reviews) among them — are the practical way across. Sailings are seasonal and weather-dependent, so book ahead and expect the occasional cancellation. From Southport itself you can see the light clearly from the eastern shore roads, which is free and takes no planning at all.
Robinson's Wharf
Robinson's Wharf (4.5 from 1,098 reviews, 20 Hendricks Hill Road) is the busiest thing on the island by an enormous margin — it has roughly eight times the reviews of anything else in Southport. It sits right at the Gut on the Southport side of the bridge, a working wharf with picnic tables over the water where you order lobster, steamers and fried fish at a window and eat outside while boats pass through the channel a few yards away.
It is seasonal, it gets busy, and the seating is uncovered, so a raw day sends everyone home. Go early or late, and go on a clear evening if you can pick your moment. This is the meal that justifies the trip.
Beyond that, Catch22 Sport Fishing (5.0 from 6 reviews, 100 Ebenecook Road) runs charters out of Ebenecook Harbor on the island's western side — a small operation with a small number of reviews, which is normal for a one-boat charter.
The quiet part, which is the point
Southport rewards aimlessness. Drive the loop — Route 27 down the spine to Cape Newagen and back up the western shore — and stop wherever a lane runs down to the water. The eastern side looks out at the harbor approaches and the islands; the western side looks over the Sheepscot toward Georgetown and the Five Islands country. Cape Newagen at the bottom is where the road runs out and the ocean starts.
Rachel Carson spent summers writing in a cottage on this island, working on the sea books that made her name. Nothing about it is set up for visitors — it is a private house — but if you have read her, walking a Southport shoreline at low tide with a tide pool in front of you is a fairly direct way to understand what she was looking at.
Where to go next
Southport is a half-day, honestly assessed, and it pairs naturally with the rest of the peninsula. Across the bridge, Boothbay Harbor has the boat trips, a deep bench of places to eat and the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens (4.8 from 7,005 reviews, the most-reviewed attraction in the whole region). East Boothbay's Ocean Point Walk (4.8 from 632 reviews) is the best short coastal walk nearby and takes about an hour.
Further afield, Damariscotta is forty minutes east for oysters and a real Main Street, and Bath is about the same to the west for the Maine Maritime Museum. If you want to stay on or near the island, options are limited and seasonal — start with the wider peninsula on our hotels listing rather than assuming you will find a room in Southport itself.
Frequently asked questions
Is Southport Island worth visiting?
Yes, if you want quiet water views, a good beach and one excellent seasonal seafood wharf, and you are not expecting shops or nightlife. The island has five rated places in total. Treat it as a half-day drive-and-swim from Boothbay Harbor rather than a base in its own right, and it delivers.
Can you visit Hendrick's Head Lighthouse?
No. Hendrick's Head Light is a private residence with no public access, which is why it rates only 3.6 from 36 reviews while the beach in front of it rates 4.6. You can see and photograph it perfectly well from Hendrick's Head Beach, and that is the way to experience it.
How do you get to Burnt Island Light?
By boat from Boothbay Harbor. There is no road access. The state runs seasonal living-history tours on the island, and harbor cruise operators such as Balmy Days Cruises provide the crossing. Sailings depend on weather, so build in flexibility. From Southport's eastern shore you can see the light from land at no cost.
Where do you eat on Southport Island?
Robinson's Wharf, which at 4.5 from 1,098 reviews is by a wide margin the busiest business in town. It is an outdoor wharf-side operation right by the swing bridge, and it runs seasonally. Outside its season, or in bad weather, plan on eating in Boothbay Harbor instead.
