I know a lot of keepers never got along with different families. Initially you had three keepers at one station, then it went down to two, and then there were one-man stations.
I was on a lot of one-man stations, but when I started I was on a two-man station. I was never struck by the personal conflict that a lot of keepers were. Sometimes they literally hated each other. Sometimes keepers were bothered by the office or by bureaucracy. Never bothered me, personally. But if you were one of these blokes who just went fishing and surfing, your place fell down and then the inspectors would roll around.
Another thing some people might not have liked is painting. You painted, painted, painted. Give me a bloody break. I was a good, honest keeper… but I did have the occasional gawk.
I was in was Cape Byron Bay, which is sort of the jewel in the crown. Give me a break! I never had a bored day in my life. There were no shops or restaurants, no schools or hospitals, no public transport. There was no crime, and there was no police force. There were no strangers — only two families lived on the island, one of which was mine. My father was assistant lightkeeper, and his job was to help the head lightkeeper run and maintain the lighthouse and island.
They would take turns each week, turning the light on every evening and off in the morning, polishing the glass, taking weather readings, and drawing the curtains closed in the daytime to prevent a fire from the concentration of sunlight on the prisms. My father had been a fisherman for years, and when he spotted the job ad in a local paper, he and my mother saw this lifestyle as an adventure.
Our food was delivered by plane every two weeks, along with any post. My father would go fishing for seafood in a little dinghy and my mother used to milk a goat; we grew our own vegetables, too. I wore clothes made by my mother, or hand-me-downs. A picture of my second birthday party shows no other guests my age, just the two families on the island.
I remember playing on the white, sandy beaches, sliding down the dunes. In later years, we moved to an even more isolated island surrounded by cliffs, and my younger sister and I would play at leaning into the wind, holding our coats open as windbreakers, to see the angle we could reach without falling over — sometimes 45 degrees.
Each has different responsibilities, but even a rental can be a full time job. These are just four of the difficult things you have to do if you call a lighthouse home. Many lighthouses include a gift shop, museum, and guided tours on their itinerary. Somebody has to turn it on. And somebody has to turn on the electricity, too.
Many lighthouses are in remote locations or on islands, so that means a generator is often the only available power supply. It goes without saying that very few lighthouses have cable or wi-fi. Lighthouses are intentionally remote outposts. So you should be ready to survive. Take, for example, the Michigan Island Lightstation. The actual light on this Wisconsin lighthouse is automated, but the rest is up to you.
Of course, not all lighthouses are so isolated. Not so picturesque, is it?
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