A lonely light in the darkness
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| A lighthouse calling to the moon. © John Richard Stephens, 2022. |
Lighthouses are something of a contradiction. They both beckon
and warn away. They’re usually placed at dangerous spots where the land juts
out into the sea or where rocks beneath the ocean’s surface pose threats to
ships. On dark nights and during storms, their bright, slowly sweeping beams of
light warn approaching vessels that danger lurks nearby and that they should
beware—that they should stay away or approach cautiously. The mournful call of
their fog horns signal to the unwary that they are nearing an invisible
shoreline hidden in the fog.
But that’s only one side of the story. Lighthouses also beckon
the men and women of the sea, directing them to the nearest port or harbor.
When a sailor sees it, he or she will know from experience or after consulting
their map that a safe spot to land is nearby or so many miles away in one
direction or the other. They’re often placed at the entrance to a harbor so the
ships can head towards the lighthouse until they can see the floating beacons
that will guide them safely in. So lighthouse’s have the dual purpose of
guiding vessels away from danger and to a place of safety where they can dock
and unload.
Lighthouses are generally a welcome sight to sailors. It may be
one of the last things they see as they head out to sea, as if wishing them a
safe voyage, and one of the first they see as they return, as if welcoming them
home.
They are placed in a variety of environments. They’re at the
entrances to bays and harbors, or on rocky cliff tops and sandy shoals. Others
are out on dangerous reefs. They are still important, even with today’s GPS and
radar beacons. But many are now automated and others are being decommissioned
and sold, sometimes for token sums to anyone who can afford their preservation.
At least one has been converted into a hostel.
I often daydream of living in one. They’re usually in the most
beautiful spots along the coast and exposed to a wide variety of weather. They
tend to be in secluded places where you’d only have the sea birds for company.
I’ve seen every movie I could find featuring them, but they tend to focus on
the difficulties and desolate solitude, ending in a descent into madness or
some other tragedy.
Of course, movies need drama, but I mainly like them for the
scenery and the idea of life in such a beautiful place. To me the fickle
weather is the drama. It changes much faster than the seasons and can be
dangerous. Lighthouses are often exposed to the elements—wind, rain, sleet, and
fog. But it’s the otherwise peaceful solitude that draws me, offering me the
opportunity to think, read, and write at my own pace, while being close to
nature, witnessing its splendor and difficulties. There are the stunning
sunrises and sunsets, but most importantly there’s the hypnotic sounds of the
waves below, endlessly flowing back and forth in misty sprays.
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| A lens inspector at the Wilson Point Lighthouse, Washington. Elinor DeWire/NOAA. |
In addition, as a lighthouse keeper there would be the
knowledge that you’re responsible for assisting in the safety of all those
vessels at sea. In the old days, men were hired to tend the lighthouses for
months at a time; now most of them are automated or manned by Coast Guard
personnel and their families—at least, in the United States.
Henry David Thoreau spent a night in the Cape Cod Lighthouse,
also known as the Highland Lighthouse in the fall of 1849, visiting it again
seven months later when a different lighthouse keeper was there. He wrote this
about life there:
The Highland Lighthouse, where we were staying, is a
substantial-looking building of brick, painted white, and surmounted by an iron
cap. Attached to it is the dwelling of the keeper, one story high, also of
brick, and built by government. As we were going to spend the night in a
lighthouse, we wished to make the most of so novel an experience, and therefore
told our host that we would like to accompany him when he went to light up.
At rather early candlelight he lighted a small Japan lamp,
allowing it to smoke rather more than we like on ordinary occasions, and told us
to follow him. He led the way first through his bedroom, which was placed
nearest to the lighthouse, and then through a long, narrow, covered passageway,
between whitewashed walls like a prison entry, into the lower part of the lighthouse,
where many great butts of oil were arranged around; thence we ascended by a
winding and open iron stairway, with a steadily increasing scent of oil and
lamp-smoke, to a trapdoor in an iron floor, and through this into the lantern.
It was a neat building, with everything in apple-pie order,
and no danger of anything rusting there for want of oil. The light consisted of
fifteen argand lamps, placed within smooth concave reflectors twenty-one inches
in diameter, and arranged in two horizontal circles one above the other, facing
every way excepting directly down the Cape. These were surrounded, at a
distance of two or three feet, by large plate-glass windows, which defied the
storms, with iron sashes, on which rested the iron cap. All the iron work,
except the floor, was painted white. And thus the lighthouse was completed.
We walked slowly round in that narrow space as the keeper
lighted each lamp in succession, conversing with him at the same moment that
many a sailor on the deep witnessed the lighting of the Highland Light. His
duty was to fill and trim and light his lamps, and keep bright the reflectors.
He filled them every morning, and trimmed them commonly once in the course of
the night.[...]
Formerly, when this lighthouse had windows with small and thin
panes, a severe storm would sometimes break the glass, and then they were
obliged to put up a wooden shutter in haste to save their lights and
reflectors,—and sometimes in tempests, when the mariner stood most in need of
their guidance, they had thus nearly converted the lighthouse into a dark
lantern, which emitted only a few feeble rays, and those commonly on the land
or lee side.
He spoke of the anxiety and sense of responsibility which he
felt in cold and stormy nights in the winter; when he knew that many a poor
fellow was depending on him, and his lamps burned dimly, the oil being chilled.
Sometimes he was obliged to warm the oil in a kettle in his house at midnight,
and fill his lamps over again,—for he could not have a fire in the lighthouse,
it produced such a sweat on the windows.[...]
Our host said that the frost, too, on the windows caused him
much trouble, and in sultry summer nights the moths covered them and dimmed his
lights[...]
I saw that this was a place of wonders. In a sea-turn [a wind
that carries in mist] or shallow fog while I was there the next summer, it
being clear overhead, the edge of the bank twenty rods distant appeared like a
mountain pasture in the horizon. I was completely deceived by it, and I could
then understand why mariners sometimes ran ashore in such cases, especially in
the night, supposing it to be far away, though they could see the land.
Once since this, being in a large oyster boat two or three
hundred miles from here, in a dark night, when there was a thin veil of mist on
land and water, we came so near to running on to the land before our skipper
was aware of it, that the first warning was my hearing the sound of the surf
under my elbow. I could almost have jumped ashore, and we were obliged to go
about very suddenly to prevent striking. The distant light for which we were
steering, supposing it a lighthouse five or six miles off, came through the
cracks of a fisherman’s bunk not more than six rods distant.
Those days are now gone.
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