Craighill Keeper’s bLog

Ah another weekend down. My routine is to head to the lighthouse on a late afternoon/early evening, haul all the supplies and bags up, eat dinner, and veg for the night to prepare for a long day of work the next day. The energy required to tie the boat up, haul the supplies up, and secure the boat better is enormous, leaving me wrecked. This way, that part’s done and the next day will be fresh. The problem is I can’t sleep out there knowing the boat is being yanked around. I had not had a trip yet where I hadn’t lost something off the boat. A ring ripped off the side, a fender attached to said ring sent adrift, the railing on the old boat ripped out, etc. etc. The Bay and boats attached to open-water lighthouses just don’t seem to get along well for me. I am eagerly awaiting the boat lift proposal… In the meantime, the scrubbing and maintenance can’t wait for a lift so my little assistant and I headed out again Saturday with plans to pick up Marty and Tamsyn (? I hope I spelled that right) from Chesapeake Bay Magazine at the dock the next morning. I skipped my son’s baseball game so I could fix the stabilizer V piece that fell off the boat on our last trip out (causing us to idle back up the Patapsco to Pasadena for hours…). It was a tricky booger - you can’t get to the screw holes because the pontoons are in the way inflated, so I had to get this goofy little ratchet screwdriver tool since even the Phillips head on the ratchet went down too far and couldn’t reach. Eventually, I got several screws put back in and hoped for the best. The flaw in the plan was that a front had just passed through (but thanks for the rain!!!) and the winds that followed were still going strong. The forecast called for them to die down overnight, so we decided to put the boat in the water and wait til the last second to head out while we still had daylight or for the winds to calm - whichever came first (that last glimpses of the sun came first).

The afternoon at the marina was pretty exciting all by itself! We met Jesse the dog and Capt. Terrrence McBride of the sailboat Shibumi, having the distinction of being the only sailboat I have ever seen in that marina! More on that later.

I had just put the boat in the water (hey, I’m getting better at backing the trailer up - I managed to get it squeezed around someone’s truck that was partially blocking the ramp entrance) and was standing chatting with Capt. McBride and one of the marina owners when the sound of emergency sirens wailing in the distance became louder. Rob said it was probably EMS coming to put their boat in, so we scrambled down and moved my boat further down the dock and then I moved my Jeep/trailer into the center so it was relatively out of the way. Sure enough, a boat was trailered down to the water and launched quickly, followed by an ambulance, fire truck, and another emergency vehicle. I squeezed my rig through to park across the street and then we sat in the boat picking up pieces of conversation. Someone had gone overboard near Hart-Miller Island and needed a rescue, possibly two people. The water looked pretty rough, so I held my breath waiting to hear what was going on. I’ve heard plenty of rescue calls while listening to the VHF up on the lighthouse, but this was the first time I was witnessing one. Scary stuff! My other thought was, “Man, I hope they never have to rush in here to rescue ME!” Although, I used the action-time as a learning experience for my son, explaining this is why he always hears me preaching ’safety first!’ and make him wear a life vest. One of these days, I’m going to have to teach him how to start and drive the boat Just In Case. One thing at a time - right now he’s learning how to work the lines and tie/untie it.

A woman was brought back on a rescue boat and transported to the awaiting ambulance in a stretcher. I lent the rescue boat a couple lines to tie up with. From what I gathered, she broke her arm after getting caught on her boat or something. I had taken Tyler down to the end of the pier so we weren’t up front and personal with the drama or in the way.

After that excitement, Tyler and I were given a tour of the sailboat to see how someone lives on board in the ocean, hearing stories of how he sleeps in 2 hour shifts while cruising up the Atlantic. And people think I’m brave going out to the lighthouse by myself! Wow. He has quite a trip planned too! We even got to chat about New Zealand for a bit which was a treat since it’s so rare I meet someone who has been there. (The location of my *other* historic home that I rarely get to see!).

I checked my spotlight in case we didn’t get to the lighthouse before dark only to find the battery was dead and I didn’t have the plug with me since the plug on the boat is too corroded from salt water and doesn’t work. Capt. McBride was so kind and lent me not only a spotlight, but the most awesome device ever - a Black and Decker all-in-one battery with 12v plugs, regular outlets, an air compressor (vital on an inflatable), and light! I totally need one of those for the lighthouse (and a water pump, and a generator, and a… where’s that registry for lighthouses again?)! It was a bit heavy, so I never took it out of the boat, which is a bummer. I was too tired to haul it up in addition to everything else. He even lent me an iPod charger for my phone since it inevitably goes dead out there. We made it out before darkness fell, but it was still windy and rough and took me circling the lighthouse three times to grab the dangling rope (moved yet again by an anonymous person, but at least it was there). The good news was that where we normally tie up was perfectly in the lee and the boat settled in perfectly and calmly and the boat made it without the stabilizer ripping off again! We hauled up our gear and I made sloppy joe’s for dinner. The green beans I intended to make were scrapped when I realized we didn’t have a can opener! (added to the list). I got to try out my new “Superfly” single burner for cooking and it worked great. I had set up the table on the leeward side and while it still made the flame flicker a bit, it cooked fine. On a bathroom break to my way cool camping toilet, I looked at the paper wrapper around the accompanying toilet paper and noticed it said LIGHTHOUSE S.F. CA. on it. I examined others in the box. Sure enough, they all did! How did I own this toilet in the lighthouse for a year and not notice this sooner?! What a freaky coincidence!

Tyler headed off to bed and I cleaned up. We decided to sleep in the “kitchen” since it would be warmer than sleeping in the basement with the open portholes and the wind howling through. Tyler commented that the “pling pling” noise the lighthouse makes in the wind sounded like a piano. I kind of thought it sounded like a banshee - the noise you make by brushing fingers across the strings of a grand piano, so that kind of cracked me up. Of course, thinking of that and then all the ghost stories told about Point Lookout (the latest lighthouse I’ve been researching and writing about), I kind of started freaking myself out when I tried falling asleep! I kept waiting for the wind to die down. Last time, it quit about 3 AM. This time, I woke up at 4 AM and it still was making the howling “pling pling”ing noise, so I went outside to check on the boat. I thought one of the lines was lost because I couldn’t see it (it’s black), but later I saw it was still there. Regardless, I couldn’t sleep anymore. Every sound had me wanting to rush out and check on the boat. Where was the calm the forecasters had promised?! Please?! I wanted to sleep! Instead, I sat in a chair out on the deck above the boat to watch for the safety line I had secured to the davit to go taut, meaning I had lost the lines below.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a streak of light. I looked up at the sky to see if I had imagined it. Nope, another shot down toward the horizon. Cool! A meteor shower or just a couple of random shooting stars? So I watched some more… definitely a meteor shower I had no prior knowledge of. I counted 20 meteors between then and dawn (a little after 6 AM). That was one advantage to being up so early! I wanted to call someone to go look, but wasn’t sure who wouldn’t strangle me for waking them at 4:30 AM!

And no sane human can get up that early without coffee. I knew trying to fall back asleep was futile, so I decided to try my percolator on the superfly. I stared and stared at the little see-through knob to watch for the percolating coffee and it’s clear condensed self just mocked me. For an hour. At one point I put cream in a cup and decided I’d take some now no matter how weak it was - until I realized it was pouring out perfectly clear into my cup. Argh! Eventually though, I had yummy grounds-filled coffee. Ahhhh!

To be continued… (in the meantime, enjoy the PHOTOSET)