Cool....WOW......Amazing!

Picture courtesy Wikimedia Commons

If I had a nickle for every time I have heard those words spoken by those visiting the 'lantern room' here at the Cape Blanco Lighthouse in the last 6 weeks I would be one rich guy!  I was thinking back to the first time I climbed those last 11 steps on the ladder into the 'lantern room' and I'm pretty sure at least one of those exclamatory words, if not all three, escaped my lips when I first laid eyes on that 78 year old 'girl' known formally as the Second Order Fresnel lens.

Picture courtesy Anni Jones Photography

When we first committed to spend two months here as volunteers I wondered if the 'job' would become passe after a few weeks, but quite the opposite has occurred.  With many jobs that is often the case, but after 6 weeks I still look forward to taking my position in the 'lantern room', and hearing those words spoken by new visitors.

Sometimes on clear, sunny days like Saturday when I stand in the 'lantern room' looking out towards Cape Blanco Reef I try to imagine a stormy night when the howling wind drowns out the spoken word, and wind driven rain is lashing the 'lantern room' windows trying to get at the light that warns mariners of impending doom if they dare come too close.  It is hard for me to comprehend spending two nights out of every three on the 'watch level' as James Langlois did for 42 years.....especially those long winter nights in late December when the inky darkness enveloped the Cape for a majority of the 24 hours each day.  I wonder what he did to pass the time.....I wonder if he ever wished he were somewhere else, doing something else.  When you think about it, how many days in your life have you been awake to watch the sun come up in the eastern sky?  These guys spent two thirds of their life for decades waiting for that first glimpse of daylight, wondering if before the sun chased away the dark they would witness a ship flounder on the reef.  I wonder what is was like to spend decades of your life living in a virtual wind tunnel day after day.....where days without wind were the exception.....I wonder......would I have stuck with it for 42 years?

I have this feeling that they enjoyed looking upon the Fresnel lens each evening.....gently and lovingly wiping the soot from her prisms each day so she would be at her best each evening when the dark banished the light from the sky once again.......so her light could be focused, and pushed far enough off shore to keep ships passing in the night safe from the hungry clutches of the reef.

There is something about the wind swept terrain, the roaring seas, the rock stacks in the ocean, the ever present wind, the long, large views, the Fresnel lens that lights up for 1.8 seconds at a time, and seemingly disappears for 18.2 seconds minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day.  It captures your imagination, and claims a piece of you forever.  You know you will return again next Fall, because this place is now, and forever, a part of you.

Thank you for stopping by!