West of Vinalhaven lies fabled Hurricane Island. Once the industrial site of the Hurricane Island Granite Company, where hundreds of stonecutters and their families engaged in the granite trade, Hurricane Island re-emerged in the 1960s as the Outward Bound School hub. Since 2009, Hurricane Island has been home to Hurricane Island Center for Science and Leadership, an ocean research and education nonprofit that runs marine and island ecology courses and conducts marine research to support the local community and Maine's emerging farmed scallop industry. The nonprofit also operates a 3.2 acre experimental marine research site at the north end of the island through a lease from the Maine Department of Marine Resources. The newly constructed Hurricane Island Field Research Station rises on the eastern shore and is the first offshore marine field research station in Maine waters. The facility is worth a visit as it is one of the first buildings on Maine's coastline designed and constructed to meet FEMA's high water floodplain projections and is a carbon net-zero building. A stop at Hurricane Island is an educational treat!