This is Jeffrey, the lighthouse keeper of the Elbow Reef Lighthouse in Hope Town, Abacos, Bahamas. When you come into the Hope Town Harbor, a well-protected and safe harbor to pick up a mooring ball, the lighthouse is the first thing you see when you are tied up. Red and White striped and 120 feet above sea level, it has been in place and fully operational since 1864.

We motored into Hope Town Harbor late on Tuesday afternoon, waiting at our anchorage near Sugar Loaf until the tide was almost high. The convoluted set of waypoints to get safely into the harbor takes you through some very shallow waters. We couldn't rubberneck at the beautiful sights we saw along the way, just keep our eyes on Oz's stern and our chart plotter. I didn't read off all the depths to Peaches, only the good ones so she wouldn't worry more than she already was. We came in unscathed thanks to Ken and his friends on Orient Express, who had gotten us two adjacent mooring balls near their boat. Bruce was in his dinghy ready to hand us the lines and we were set. An invitation for dinner was included in the service. That was when I saw the lighthouse. I knew it was there because it was featured on all the guide books, but wow, here we were!

In the early 1800s, this British colony was right in the shipping lanes for lots of ships coming and going to England. The islands of the Bahamas, especially those of the Abacos were ringed with dangerous shoals, reefs, rocks cays and white sandy beaches. The Abaconians made a good living from salvaging the wrecks that fetched up on the reefs near their homes. It was called wracking, and employed more than half of the able-bodied men of these islands.

Concerned shipping interests implored England to improve their almost nonexistent navigational aids in her colonies. Too many of England's finest ships were leaving their "bones" on the reefs. The Bahamas were in the way of many of England's biggest ports of call in Central and South America as well as the gulf coast of the US. In the 1860s, there was an average of one shipwreck per month in the Abacos alone.

The lighthouse at Elbow Cay was built in 1863 and completed in 1864. The British inspector chose the site because he could see six wrecks from the top of the hill where he was standing! There was considerable enmity from the Abaconians about the building of the lighthouse, as it would ruin their economy. Over three hundred licenses to salvage ships were in effect at the time of the building of the lighthouse.

When completed, it was a steady light lighthouse signal, going out to sea about 15 miles. When ships passed the light, safely off the rocks, they put up signal flags which the lighthouse keepers recorded in their logbooks, signaling back their response. When ships passed the light, the keepers sent a bill to the shipping business in England for the safe passage. This still persists around the world, to help pay the costs of the navigational aids.

This lighthouse is perhaps one of only a few in the world that is still manned 24 hours a day. Even the lighthouses along the English Channel are now automated to save money. In my net-search, only a few manned lighthouses persist even in third-world countries. The last in the US was at the Boston Light, also one of the first built in the country.

Enough dry stuff for now. We went by dinghy a short distance across the harbor to the lighthouse dock, tied up and started the climb to the base of the lighthouse and the various outbuildings. Our goal was to climb the 101 steps to the top, see the sunset and take pictures of the harbor, and then, hopefully see the keeper light the mantle. Peaches made it to the top, with sheer determination. I had forgotten how much she hates heights, so she overcame a couple of difficulties to get there. All four of us made it to the top and Connie, Ken and I all squeezed ourselves through a window-sized door out to the platform just below the light. The wind felt good, we'd walked all day and were sweaty and hot. We took lots of pictures of the harbor, the island and out to sea as well as the sunset. It wasn't much because of all smoke from the brush fires on the islands to the west of us. I believe they do some intentional burns to cut the thick underbrush in some areas.

The sun set and we were in the small area just below the light where the many gears and pulleys are to turn the light. It is now a signal light, with one full rotation every 15 seconds, giving five flashes and then a gap on each rotation. We took pictures of the gears, and also the two brass plates showing the manufacturer's name, from Birmingham England. You could see up into the Fresnel prisms and smell the oil on the gears and a whiff of the kerosene used to fuel the light.

After quite a while, darkness had descended, we heard someone coming up the stairs. At this point Peaches decided she had been high long enough and didn't really want to be in a kerosene smelling place when the guy struck his match. Down she went. Ken went down to watch Jeffrey pump up the air pressure under the kerosene tanks so that it would flow up into the light. There were about 10 red plastic kerosene tanks there that Jeffrey carries up from the dock every day then hauls up by a l-o-n-g rope to the top. I think how heavy it is for Peaches and I to carry our diesel tanks and marvel at this guy's upper body strength (and from the pumping he does and from the winding of the weights to turn the light, done every two hours all night long).

He came up to where we were anxiously waiting for him and crawled up right into the light. He sat, it almost seemed reverentially, watching the light he lit for the pilot light to heat up the main light. He also climbed out to drop all the canvas curtains on the openings surrounding the light lenses. They are there because the intense sunlight here would filter through the prisms and start a fire during daylight. We watched him until finally he took a long-handled cup of Kerosene and primed the light and it was lit. He watched it for a while; adjusting and twiddling knobs to get it just right.

He got down from the light and back to where we were and started winding the weights from the bottom of the lighthouse up to the top, a long process that is done every 2 hours all night long. These weights cause the light to rotate, at the right speed, all night. The area under the light is filled with mercury and all he had to do to start the rotation was give it a gentle push, the weights will do the rest.

Jeffrey said he works 7 days a week all year, with one month off for vacation. What a job this must be. He seemed healthy and happy and was a big man, almost too big to fit up into the light! His father was the light keeper before him, for over 37 years. Jeffrey has been doing it for 6 years so far. There is no talk yet of automating it. Why fix something that has worked so well for so long.

We all said good-night to him and went home, very happy, in our dinghies. It was for me the most interesting part of my trip this year. I hope you like the photographs. Star of the Sea, out.

For further reading go to my best source,
http://www.go-abacos.com/news/whatson/whatson_lighth.html