I am sitting on the banks of the Puget Sound this evening, waiting for dinner, and enjoying the beautiful scenery of western Washington state. Under my feet is a pebble beach, a log for my butt, behind me is a well ordered row of woody cabins. In front of me is a mile wide stretch of water about 48 degrees but crystal clear and full of sea lions, otters, salmon, dungeness crabs, and gray whales. [...]
The most recent project at the LAMP Boatworks. Foreground left is the Chaisson dory tender, a 17′ spritsail skiff to right, and a 1760s ship’s yawl in the background. A quick update, since I’ve been remiss in sending one for a while. I hope this finds you all in kindred spirits and enjoying this fine weather. Things around the boatworks have been heating up this spring and continue to simmer at a solid pace. [...]
Jacksonville.com published a nice piece about our behind the scenes tours here at the Museum. If you haven't take one of the tours, they are well worth it. See how the museum works, how we are learning about our past from artifacts buried in the seafloor, and learn about the many things which go on behind the veil to keep our history alive and exciting. Even if you have visited the lighthouse before, or recently, [...]
The SS John Brown waits for us to board for a twilight cruise around the harbor on a living piece of history that takes my breath away. The middle of September found me in Baltimore once more for the Ninth Maritime Heritage Conference. I was there to do a presentation on Disaster Planning, and what happened here in St. Augustine during the hurricane season of 2004. The presentation was well received by the lighthouse group, [...]
Check out this new video, hot off the press! It's narrated by Ray Hamel, long-time Lighthouse and LAMP volunteer who also serves on the Board (and is a former Board Chair). Ray does a great job sharing the excitement of new visitors who come here for special events such as our Sunset Moonrise, which occurs every full moon and is highlighted in the video clip. The footage is great--check out the expansive camera view of [...]
Just a quick note to say that I am back. I didn't realize how long it had been since I had blogged, and so I thought I would post a quick note. Sometime earlier in the year my kids convinced me to sign onto Facebook to keep in touch with them. Since then I have gotten in touch with folks I haven't heard from since high school. But the interesting thing is that lighthouse enthusiasts [...]
Sunset is refracted through the 1st order fresnel lens at the end of a long work day. Last fall work started to treat some corrosion issues in our lantern. Anyone who has ever worked in historic preservation knows that maintenance on historic structures is on-going and the same is true here. The following photos will bring you up to speed on our progress. […]
A couple of months ago we had some serious winds blowing here at the lighthouse from the west. We have a door stop at the top of the tower that keeps the heavy cast-iron door from banging into the lantern wall. Our site interpreter Bob was on the gallery deck when the winds arose. He restricted access to the deck to ensure guest safety until he had taken some wind readings and determined that he [...]
Just a quick look at what a tropical storm looks like from the lens room of the lighthouse. This was shot on Thursday, one of the calmer days, when visibility was better. It became much worse on Friday.
I recently traveled to Traverse City, Michigan for the Great Lakes Lighthouse Conference presented by the Michigan Lighthouse Alliance. I was pretty excited since it had been four years since I last set foot in the north woods. […]