Lighthouse News

Fire Ruled As Arson

In sad news out of Halifax, Nova Scotia, one of the lighthouse keeper houses at Sambro Island was totally destroyed by fire on Sunday morning. About 8:00 am local time, the Canadian Coast Guard received a call from a citizen who reported seeing what appeared to be the Sambro Lighthouse on fire. As the Coast Guard Cutter Sambro approached the island, the crew was able to see that the fire was not in the lighthouse, but in one of two nearby abandoned keepers houses. The crew of the cutter had firefighting equipment on board.

Bidder May File Suit To Reopen

In an unexpected development to the two auctions of the New York Lighthouses, it appears an improper setting in the GSA’s computer system may have caused the premature end of the auction. According to one of the bidders, Michael Lynn Gabriel, he was preparing to enter a new bid when he discovered the auctions had been closed, against the rules on the site and not in accordance with the information in the Invitations For Bid. The auctions have been in a soft close state since August 15. Taking this directly from the Instructions To Bidders in the IFB for West Bank (and it’s the same in the one for Old Orchard Shoals), it reads:

Caretaking Not a Vacation

Even though all lighthouses in the United States are automated, there are still a very few lighthouse keepers. One is Sally Snowman, at Boston Harbor Light. And two others are Lynne Macco and Tim Mount, from New York, taking care of Seguin Island Lighthouse, Maine, for the 2008 season. And though they may not have much in common with Sally in Boston, they are two dedicated keepers of the light. And island. And museum. And lens. Tim, a choir director and music conductor at Stony Brook University on Long Island, and his wife Lynne, a physician in private practice and acupuncturist in New York, were the two lucky people chosen out of 20 or 30 applications to assume the summertime caretaking duties on Seguin. This very personable couple meets and greets visitors to the island, and take them up to the tower for a closeup look at the only first order Fresnel lens in Maine. Sounds like an easy job, almost a vacation, but there’s a lot more to it. In fact, it’s not so dissimilar to time past, when the Keepers in the nineteenth century had to keep the light lit.

Soft Close Set For Online Auctions

Old Orchard Shoals and West Bank Lighthouses are set to go off the market Monday, August 25 at 3:00 pm (EDT). If you were planning on bidding on these New York Lights, now is (almost) your last chance. A soft close means that if there are no more bids during the day, then the lighthouse will be sold to the highest bidder. If there is a last minute bid, the closing date will be extended on a daily basis to allow the previous bidders (or any last minute new ones) to up the ante for the home of their dreams. Wait…home of their dreams? Photos have recently been placed online of the recent inspection, and the deterioration of these lighthouses is absolutely heartbreaking.

Commanding Lead For the Michigan Lighthouse

One month left to go on the voting for your favorite lighthouse to win new windows and doors from Jeld-Wen, and Grand Traverse Lighthouse is leading the pack by far. Out of the 350,000 votes cast so far, thirty-six percent of the votes, about 130,000 have so far been given to this Michigan beauty, which is now a museum. A distant second and third are Bodie Island Lighthouse and New Canal Lighthouse with about 70,000 votes (twenty percent) each.

A few weeks ago, the news broke that the Kincardine Municipal Council chose to slap vinyl siding on their historic lighthouse and call it a “restoration.” Their reasoning was that they had to stop the leaks. While yes, stopping leaks is a necessary part of lighthouse maintenance, the Council violated every historic property guideline in their zeal to “do the right thing.” And worse, although they’ve offered to sit down and talk with Heritage Kincardine, the talks have gone nowhere, even to the point of refusing to correct their mistake. And it’s worse than it actually seemed at first. The original and unique windows have been replaced, and the interior has been ruined.

Dry Ice Blasting - Cheaper and Safer for the Environment

Earlier this year, Split Rock Lighthouse (Minnesota) was closed for renovations and painting. Normally, when lighthouses and other historic structures are repainted, the removal of the previous outer coating and its attendant cleanup is the most expensive part of the process, involving the use of sandblasters or other grit based removal systems. And with the attendant cleanup, the costs rise exponentially. What was unique about Split Rock, is that a relatively new technology that came into being in the late 1980s was used rather than the old fashioned, and damaging methods.

When Well-Intentioned Repairs Go Awry Part II

Cove Point Lighthouse, Maryland’s oldest continuously operating lighthouse, was recently selected as a recipient of a heritage grant from the state. The tower is owned by the Calvert Marine Museum, and a second grant has been applied for to also renovate the keeper’s house with a complete stabilization of the structure, a new roof, windows and extensive interior work. With that completion, the Museum will be offering the house as a rental to the public for one or two week stays, with the chance to do actual lighthouse type work, such as tracking tides and monitoring ships. The ambitious plans include it being historically accurate to 1923, with of course compliance to today’s standards. While exciting, that’s not what caught my eye in this story. What did, was the reference to “self-destructing bricks.”

Lack of Funding Forces Closure

If you’re planning on going to the New Jersey Lighthouse Challenge this October, that will be the only chance for you to climb the Finn’s Point Lighthouse. Its closing was announced today by Howard Schleigal, the manager for Supawna Meadows and Cape May National Wildlife Refuge. According to the Friends of Supawna Meadows, the lighthouse currently has no money allocated in its budget for maintenance and repair. The Department of Interior Budget has been stripped in the proposed 2009 fiscal year Bush Budget, to the tune of $410 million. Natural resources agencies are being starved of funds by Bush’s FY2009 proposal, says the former director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service under the Clinton administration, Jamie Rappaport Clark. “The president’s final budget deals a huge blow to the agencies and programs charged with safeguarding our nation’s natural resources,” she said. “The next administration will be burdened with mending the damage caused by President Bush’s disastrous policies.”

Group Short On Young Volunteers

Earlier this year, Lighthouse News featured a story about the Harbor of Refuge Lighthouse in Delaware, which has huge holes underneath its foundation and the breakwall it sits upon from the scouring action of waves. The Army Corps of Engineers conducted a side scan survey of the breakwall and discovered ten to twelve ton rocks displaced. But that’s not what this current article is about. A recent article at Delmarva.Com highlighted the fund raising efforts of the Delaware River & Bay Lighthouse Foundation to raise $12,000 by the end of the year for some of the repairs. But that’s not what this article is about either. What caught the eye of Lighthouse News in the Delmarva story was a quote by Foundation President Judith Roales.