Episode 37 - West Quoddy Head Lighthouse

0:00 Are you ready? I'm ready. We're on. Okay, because you have to press the button at an appropriate time. Not too fast. Not too late. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Hi everyone. I'm Emily. And I'm Vince. And this is the Lighthouse Lowdown. [♪ music and water running on the water Yeah, I was watching you like a hawk. I don't mean to be overbearing, but sometimes I just kind of am. This coffee is delicious. Vince's first time having coffee in exactly one month. Mm-hmm. Gave it up for sober October. Which this year was sober September. Oh yeah, that's right. So we can drink in October. [♪ laughs at the end of the video Welcome back to the most explicit Lighthouse podcast on the internet.

0:44 We can't wait to get wasted. [♪ laughs at the end of the video But today is just coffee. That's right. It's actually my first hot coffee of like the year. Now that it's hit 80 degrees outside, it's officially cold according to some people. To be fair, yeah, I don't... Today was giving off like cool weather vibes even though it wasn't cold out. Spooky season. Yeah, like I was just feeling it. And tomorrow it's supposed to get cold. And the next day, like 60 something. Very nice. For a high, so. Very nice. Anyway, so we have hot coffees in the studio today. I am covering another Maine lighthouse. I don't know what happened. It's just kind of... Maine the State, okay. Yeah, yeah, another Maine the State.

1:24 Maine with an E lighthouse. I have a history buoy. It's pretty self-explanatory, but I thought... I thought it was interesting, so I'll just cover it. Are you ready to go? Let's go, history buoy. Today, I'm gonna do the selecting the height of a lighthouse. Selecting it? Yeah, like how they decide how tall the lighthouse is gonna be. Yeah, so when you break it down, it's like duh. But I don't know, I never give it much thought. Break it down for us. And this is why we don't have cameras in the studio. Emily started beatboxing and dancing at the same time.

2:07 It's awful. It's a coffee. Okay, everything you do, selecting the lighthouse characteristics is about how visible the light beam is gonna be. Usually you want it to coincide with like maritime traffic and it depends on how far away are most ships going to be from the shore and like where are they gonna be when they start coming in or how far do you want them to stay away from it. So you also have to keep in consideration how tall is the land that the lighthouse is gonna be built on. And also things like weather in the region. Like is it usually super foggy? Is the visibility low? Right. So visibility is low regardless of fog.

2:49 It's like if it's just is it misty? Like it wouldn't be a reason to have a foghorn running, but it may be a reason for you to need to adjust the lighthouse. Sure. So most lighthouses are between 33 and 208 feet tall. There are variations on each side. I'm gonna show you one of them. So many questions. Oh, go ahead. What do you mean between 33 and 208 feet tall? That's very specific. I know. It's just second and third like quartile. What's happening? I just that most lighthouses fall within that range. Like 208 being like where it starts to taper off and there's only like one or two lighthouses above that.

3:30 So the mass of them, not like some of them, like a bell curve. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like the large large percentage. The bell part. I know what you're talking about, but I don't I remember that we used to have to do math problems about that, like probability and stuff. Distribution. I hated that. Well, also, I know what you're talking about when it comes to the weather conditions, because obviously lighthouses usually are on the coastline. Yeah. Not always, as you'll see in an upcoming episode. Oh, someday. Exciting. Yeah, we keep pushing back your episodes. Yeah, that's all right. But, you know, there's some that we've seen that it makes most sense to have them low because it's actually below clouds or below cover.

4:12 Yeah, exactly. And some are really tall. So tell us more about it. Thank you. The main thing that's important when they're selecting it is the luminous range of the lighthouse, which sometimes is in question because it definitely depends on if you're going to have a Fresnel lens and what order it's going to be in, like what kind of light are you going to have inside the Fresnel lens, which, of course, changed over time and more powerful is usually better. But the luminous range is an accurate, it's an equation and it's an accurate way to tell how far a beam is visible to sailors or anyone, you know, sailing. And it takes into account the visibility of the atmosphere where the lighthouse is built, which is what I was talking about, is that it's not always fog.

4:55 Yeah, exactly. Could be smoke from a fire. Or there could be like light pollution or something else going on. And also takes into account the threshold of the human eye to perceive the light beam, which is very interesting. It's like has a lot to do with like the average human eye being able to pick up colors and the range of light and also, you know, lighthouse has a main light beam and then all around that the light tapers off, you know, it's like you could still see that there's a light beam, even if you're not standing directly in front of where the light is coming from. So it takes all of that into account. Obviously, the lighthouse beam needs to be seen as far out to see as necessary, which changes depending on where you are.

5:40 Like if you're on a lake, you're going to be worried about people being closer than like out to sea. You're going to worry about them being like more than a mile out from shore. So you're not going to worry about having the light beam visible like a mile out. You're going to worry about it being like 10 miles out because people are coming in from, you know, any direction. And like you were saying, there are limitations considering if the lighthouse is too tall, a local ship may not see the beacon at all. It's like if you're on a if the lighthouse is like on a cliff and then the lighthouse is super tall on top of that, you sailor may be going by just completely underneath the beam of the lighthouse.

6:20 They would never even know that it was there. Yeah. So it just totally depends on where traffic is and what the land looks like. So if you're on a cliff, you're going to have a lighthouse that's shorter. Usually, I'm sure there's outliers. And if I looked it up, I would have, which is funny because if you look at like lighthouse culture online, like art, photos, we all like not all of us, but a lot of us like the taller ones. The biggest, you know, all the time we show those North Carolina lighthouses that are really tall. Yeah. But it's not average. And here's here's an example. Our light the lighthouse we've covered the Faro de Ajo in Spain.

7:00 It's not a short lighthouse. It's like a I'm pretty sure it was around 70 or 80 feet tall or something. Well, there's like several lighthouses that were part of that. The Faro de Caminos. I think. Oh, no, not not not the trail, the one that the really brightly colored one. No, I think you're correct. Yeah, I think it is. It's and it's on top of a cliff that's really tall. And the whole reason behind that is that nobody comes by there. They're always on the way to a port like coming from far away. Nobody's they're not worried about anybody. Not immediately below. They are worried about people being close to the cliff. They're trying to direct people in the correct direction. So obviously, the lighthouse ended up a little bit taller than if they were like concerned about people being closer.

7:41 So that's a good example. Yeah. But then we have things like the Hatteras lighthouse, which is the tallest in the United States, and it's on like almost sea level. And so they have it be really tall because you're directing people or know that long cautioning people. Right. Hatteras was the first one to caution people. Well, I mean, in general, this is kind of an open question, but lighthouses both though they have multiple purposes, but they both direct you to stay away from something or to stay online with something that we talked about in our last episode. You know, the signal lights or to come to something. I mean, there might be a light that signals this is the port entry.

8:23 Yeah. And then you want to say this side of that side or between the two points. There's all sorts of different differentiation. So it makes sense. But Hatteras, Cape Hatteras, I think was. Well, it's a cape. So there's an entrance into an inlet. I can't remember. I want to say that this the reason why it's so tall is that there's some range where if you see this light, you're you're getting into a bad area. So they make it tall enough to where the range in which you're seeing the light is the danger zone and not like anywhere else. And if you see the paint daymark, then you're really too. Yeah. Then you're just visiting. You see you see the spiral barbershop effect. Yeah. Go away.

9:06 Cool. Yeah. So I don't have any of the math surrounding that. It was just like a general like these are the things that they keep in mind. But that's basically all I had to say about that. Well, there's more there's more to it, I'm sure, in like constructability. Yes. Every lighthouse has come, I think all of them that I can think of has come from some collection of tragedy events, tragic events. And they say, hey, we've got to put a lighthouse here. And then usually they ask a couple of times before this funding. And then, you know, part of the funding for looking at a lighthouse would be all the components you need. The light, the beacon, given your range and technology of the time, that price varies a lot. Yeah.

9:47 We learned. And then also like the tower itself, the tower cost for a taller tower is not just more of it, but they have to be different designs. It has to be more stable. Depending on the foundation, where it's at. So I think there's different the height is impacted by a lot more. Oh, we're both engineers. You know, you design something and you say this is what it's intended for. This is a perfect design. Air quotes perfect. And then it goes to the construction field and the rest of the real life impacts change what's actually built. Yeah, right. Interesting. Yeah. I had to note that the tallest lighthouse in the U.S. is Hatteras at one hundred ninety eight point five feet tall and it's only 10 feet above sea level.

10:31 And then it's crazy. In contrast, the shortest that's registered with the USLHS, I think it's hard to find a definitive answer. Like what is the shortest lighthouse in the U.S. because nobody cares about that. You know, it's like the tallest one. People are like, oh, wow, fancy. Let's go see it and everything. The shortest one. People are like, cool. Yeah. What did you find? But I found Trinidad headlight with a tower height of 25 feet. OK, so I think I think there would be shorter than that, but it's 200 feet above sea level because it's on a cliff. OK, so it needs. Yeah, obviously it doesn't need a big tower. Yeah. So I was just listing those as like you can tell, obviously, that if the short if the land is shorter than the lighthouse, maybe taller.

11:16 Well, and you know, as we're learning lighthouses, it's so not simple anymore. So like this is not US, but Canada, we talked about Triangle Island Light. That was one of my first episodes. I really enjoyed that one. But the lantern room was repositioned to Sook, I think it is outside of Victoria. And so it's like six feet tall, like the tower, because it's a single staircase just to step into the lantern room. You can't put a lantern room on the ground. So it's like the shortest. I think I think it's actually like on Google Maps, it's in view of the street. So they have to be concerned about light refracting.

11:56 And it's not a lighthouse today, but it's funny that you said that because there's anomalies everywhere. And I included a picture of the cutest, tiniest little lighthouse. It's like it's exactly six feet tall, which is funny. Then I thought you said that. But this is just on a shoreline, I think, of either a very small lake or a river in front of somebody's house. OK. And I don't think it's registered with the USLHS, which is why I didn't say that it was the shortest lighthouse. But it's called Pocahontas Light. And I think another name for it was Echo Light. Look how cute for one who wants to go see it says Echo Point. So I think this is just going to be a little private lake or something. But it showed up as the shortest lighthouse in the US.

12:38 So something special going on. Lawn chairs are out there. So cute. There are when we were in. Where were we staying? North Carolina. Oh, I said when we were in Nagshead, there was something similar to that in someone's backyard. As we got the beach access, like the public beach access out there, I can't remember. It was just like a backyard lighthouse. I think it was just for their own decoration. But for fun. Yeah, it wasn't quite that sturdy. We saw one in Sweden, too, before we before the ferry to Lansor. I still have a lighthouse lamp on my to do list.

13:18 Oh, yeah. There's some really nice ones people sell online. Really fancy to make a little replica of Pocahontas Light here. I like that one. It's pretty cute. Looks sturdy. Looks like you store some whiskey bottles in those windows. Make it all cut in half or you can open it like a cabinet. That'd be pretty cool. Very cool. Be doing a disservice to the light. Do you know where this is? Echo Point? I wonder if it's just like someone's lake house. That's what I was wondering. Yeah. I just think it's funny that it has a name and it showed up on Google like readily like, oh, here it is. Like, how? Yeah, it's got some evergreens behind it. Unusual. Yeah, I didn't look up to see exactly where it is. Cool.

13:58 But now we can move on to the lighthouse that we're actually covering today and it is called West Coati Head Lighthouse. I think that's how you pronounce it. It's what I'm going to go with for this episode. So if it's wrong, somebody can send me an email and be upset about it. I'd be all right with it. Huh? Coati. Coati. Q-U-O-D-D-Y. Like where you break boards and strike poses. What? You get a belt. Coati. Oh, no. Awful. Awful. Boo. All right. Let's see it. So we're heading over to Lubeck, Maine. I also think that's how you pronounce it.

14:39 Doing my best. This lighthouse is unique for a couple of reasons. First, it is the furthest east lighthouse in the U.S. as well as the land that it's on. So it's like the mark of the most easternmost point of the U.S., the United States of America. Secondly, it's the only candy striped lighthouse in the U.S. And to me, when I think of candy stripe, I think of like a candy cane, like a spiral. But I think for lighthouses, candy stripe refers to thin, like a lot of thin bands. So it's the only one we have. But tell me that's not just the cutest little lighthouse aside from Pocahontas.

15:21 It's very cute. It looks like a peppermint. Yeah. Yeah, I thought it was so cute. Looks like a Waldo. Yeah. Where's Waldo? Yeah, right there. It's right there. Look how big the Keepers quarters are. Yeah, it's a really nice. It's a nice one. Three chimneys going on. What is this we keep seeing? We don't know. I don't know about. Yeah, the little mast shape. It's a mast on land. I keep seeing that as a flagpole. We're going to have to look it up now because we've seen it a couple of times. Montauk Point had it, too. It's got to have some meaning. Wow. I never noticed those. And then you pointed out. That's cool. Cool. So this is what? Thirty feet tall? The tower? Forty nine feet tall. All right. My scale was off.

16:04 Well, yeah, that's probably to the top of the lightning rod. I bet so because this the Keepers cottage is two stories tall. So roughly 10 foot a story. So this picture I'm I'm showing you is deceiving because the weather is not usually like this at this lighthouse. It's not usually dandy and sunny. Yeah, it is the first lighthouse to have a fog bell equipped, which is good because literally half of the month, half of the summer is just dense fog all the time. And actually. Oh, wow. That is dense fog. Yeah. So that's what it looks like a majority of the time in the summer. And Keeper Malcolm Rouse, I think his name is.

16:49 He was the last keeper at this lighthouse and said one time they had 31 straight days of fog, like relentless fog. Yeah. A singular day of sun. And then immediately after that, another 29 days of dense fog. But they enjoyed the sunny day. Yeah. Can you imagine this picture that we're looking at for people that want to look? You can go to our YouTube or our Instagram and we show all the pictures that we talk about in our episodes. But can you imagine living in this for almost two months straight? It's like the people who live in Alaska and don't have sun for like three months. I can't imagine it. I think it'd be cool. Really cool for a little bit. And then terrible. Yeah. It'd be in some serious need for vitamin D. It was also the first to have a steam powered fog signal, which I read that the the Lighthouse Board was very reluctant to start steam whistles because at that time.

17:44 Boilers. Boilers. Yeah. Yeah. They were worried about having. Explosion. Yeah. They were worried about having inexperienced like people that aren't professionals in boilers to be operating a boiler. And so they put it off for a long time before it became like safer, you know, like safety related stuff was enacted. And then they allowed keepers to run steam whistles instead of the original fog. Yeah. Boilers. I mean, the concept of a boiler is to create a pressure vessel that has high temperature and high pressure steam. Yeah. So if there's an accident, it's not very good. Yeah.

18:26 And if there's any kind of a problem or anything, keepers are not going to know. I mean, it was new. It was like a new thing. So early adopters are risk takers. Exactly. It's like us with this podcast. So West Quah. You're always just late enough to write start my new sentence. And then I'm like, oh, yes. Here you can try. All right. Dang it. West. Kowati. West. Kowati. I hate the Kowati kid. You're ruining this for me. It was a little foggy in Kowati. Is it still foggy?

19:11 I assume the weather hasn't changed. No, it's still Maine. But it was OK. West Kowati was named after Passama Kowati Bay, which was named after the Native Americans who have lived there for centuries. OK. The name means Pollock Spear Pollock Pollock Pollock. Pollock is a fish. OK, which reflects the excellent fishing that's done in this area and also was a reason for that attracted European settlers in about 1604. It's when they started moving on over. That's early. Scooch. Scooching early for us. Yeah. And it wasn't until 1806. So 200 years later that commerce actually started to increase to this area.

19:57 And locals asked to have a lighthouse built because there was apparently like basaltic outcroppings around the entrance to Passama Kowati Bay. And they needed a lighthouse to kind of direct people in, make it less dangerous. And this area, the entrance to the bay is called the Kowati Narrows, which I think sounds like something that would be like in a thriller film or something. Yeah. Narrows is a cool. Like there'd be a like a log cabin on the edge of it. Maybe spooky. Yeah. Spooky and foggy. Speaking of spooky, Vince and I have a surprise for our next episode. It's going to be very Halloween. It's still lighthouse focused. We're going to have an interview going on and Vince and I are going to be recording our section of the episode on Friday the 13th.

20:44 First one that was in October. A little late, but another reason we don't have videos in the podcast studio so that I can dance along to our spooky sound videos yet. Nobody ever gets you this way. But so everyone keep an eye out for that. That'll post on October 30th. So the day before Halloween, it's going to be very spooky and exciting. We're ready for it. Anyway, back to West Kowati Lighthouse. A year after locals asked for a lighthouse, $5,000 was allocated and a white octagonal wooden tower and keepers dwelling was built in 1808.

21:24 Because of the fog and the newness of fog bells at this time, a lot of them were cycled through in just a couple of years as they were trying to figure out what was going to work best. So in 1820 was the first fog bell and it was 500 pounds. But complaints started coming in immediately about it not being useful in bad weather. Like nobody could hear anything. So they replaced it with a 241 pound bell. So less than half hoping that the higher pitch would travel better and people would be able to hear it, but they still couldn't. So then they replaced that with a 1565 pound bell.

22:06 Can't go smaller, go bigger. Seven times bigger. 1500 pounds. Yeah. But they still said that it could not quote could not be heard even a quarter mile from the lighthouse. Wow. Quarter mile is pretty bad. Rough weather. That's bad. Like especially a quarter mile you're closing in. Do you know what the range of the light is under what conditions? That's probably hard to quantify. Yeah. Well, sometimes they put the range, but I'm sure that means in optimal weather you'd be able to see it. Anyway, they talked about building a lighthouse and a bell on sail rock, which technically is actually the most eastern most point of the United States.

22:56 It's this tiny island outside of West Quad. And so they talked about putting a lighthouse and a fog bell out there because it'd be better for the people sailing to have notice not right when they get to the bay. And they actually allocated money for it, but it was just never built. I don't know what happened because I think it would have benefited everybody. But maybe it would have been hard to keep a keeper out there because it was such this tiny little. Let me go back to where I had the map. The map. Oh, I saw it. See this tiny little. Yeah, that'd be difficult. Yeah, it'd be hard to have a keeper out there. So I think they might have abandoned it for that reason or just it would have been hard to build something out there and with the fog and everything.

23:39 I don't know. Probably was a stretch like, oh, we already got a lighthouse. We already have a fog. Yeah, might as well just leave it. Yeah. That's not in the image we're looking at. That's not the fifteen hundred pound bell. Is it seems like a two fifty? I vaguely remember five hundred. I remember this happened to us last time we did an episode and there was a bell outside and we're like, that doesn't look like a thousand pounds or a scump. Yeah. And then we're like, maybe it is Marshall Point. I think the weight of bells is very deceiving to their size. But we just have to accept that. Maybe they lie. After two decades, what are you going to say? The weight of the bell is not actually a manufactured number.

24:22 It's just what the guy told you. He put it up there. And that thing was heavy. It was like probably eleven hundred fifteen hundred pounds. It was like a whale carrying. That's how much they weigh. Let's hope that's not true, because they would have been really specific then, because this was one thousand five hundred and sixty five. Yeah, that's one way to lie. You just get oddly specific. Yeah, you could tell them something embarrassing about yourself. I stepped my finger. Son of a bitch. Anyway. After two decades, the original lighthouse was deteriorating, which is pretty bad.

25:02 Two decades feel like it should. I mean, we've got a lot of moisture in the air here. So I guess we could blame it on that. But a new one was built for approximately two thousand four hundred dollars out of rubble stone. However, this lighthouse. Yeah, it's a good deal. This light was poorly built. Wasn't a good deal. I know. Which that was the same thing that happened to Marshall Point. Right. Or maybe it was Montauk. It was just made of rubble stone and it was just so bad. We had to redo it. Maybe it was the same guy. We got to figure out who this guy is that's making these horrible rubble stone lighthouses. Get him fired. I can build you one for half price. Eighteen hundred out of rocks.

25:44 He's probably still alive. Right. It only took a decade before they needed to replace it again. Less than a decade. So no boy, no. A new one was built in eighteen fifty seven from brick. And this is also when it received its third order fixed for Nellyn's. Very nice. So this is when it was newly built. It didn't even have its gallery railing up yet. There's another railing that's going to be added on there. So very cool and black and white. And this was still the original Keepers Cottage. They switched it here and just. They did pretty good building buildings in 18, whatever. Yeah. I mean, just appearances wise, it's very square. And now that you know that you've said something about it, I think the house is connected to the lighthouse.

26:29 It looks like there's a little walkway. Yeah, I can't remember. There's some word for that. Yeah. Right. Birdcage. Well, and who knows where the steam whistle was eventually. I don't know if I have a picture of it, but it's like a whole other structure by itself. OK. You know, you're the who you are. I'm not sure if I posted it. I have a picture, but I can put one on the Instagram whenever we. Yeah, all these photos should be on Instagram. And then in the coming times soon, I'm going to try to figure out Spotify as well. Oh, interesting for video. Yeah. Just to have it kind of incorporated. Yeah, that's an idea, because for people that if there is anyone else in this world that listens to our podcast on Google podcasts, they're going away.

27:15 I don't know why, but that's where I listen to my podcasts. I might be the only one that listens to ours on on that. Spotify is big right now. YouTube is growing for us. We appreciate that. Yeah. Even LinkedIn, you know, it's not the media on LinkedIn, but people travel in from LinkedIn. So email from Google talking about how its app was going away for podcasts said that we should move on over to Apple podcasts. I looked at Apple podcasts and I'm not sure I like it. I think Apple invented podcasts. I think I'm just stuck in my ways. I'm like, where's the Q button? And there's no Q button. And I'm like, oh, so I hate it. All right.

27:57 Feedback for Apple. Yeah. Take that to heart. Yeah, we had a fixed light characteristic, a brand new for Nellins and this tower and the for Nellins are still in use today from what year? 18 1857. Wow. Clap for them. Nice. That's enough. Oh, wow. Very short. Only a little bit of clapping. It's aggressive. But yeah, this one's 49 feet tall. The one that we have today, red and white candy stripe and it's 83 feet above sea level. So run a little bit of a cliff edge. Smart.

28:37 In 1866, the added a fog signal that was like up to date and then improved it in 1868. And this is whenever they added the steam whistle that two years later, they resisted for just a little bit longer and then had it, you know, up to normal. Everyday standards. Yeah, man. I bet there's steam whistles tootin all the time. Oh, just nonstop. Like we just said, the guys had to almost two months of straight fog. Yeah, the thing was going 24 7. Maybe it's only under storm conditions or something. You know, not just fog. I think it's fog.

29:17 Oh, I know. Tough. Awful. You think people just wouldn't come here? You're like, fine. It is going to be foggy for two months. We just won't go there. Traders got a trade in 1885. The West Quarry Fog signal logged the most hours of any U.S. light station at one thousand nine hundred and forty five hours running time in one year. Yes. So I'm pretty sure a man, I'm gonna say a man, but a person, a man working for a year like a man year. Is two thousand hours. I know there's it's something like that.

29:57 There's a between eight thousand and nine thousand hours in a year total. So if you were to work eight hours a day, right. But these guys don't have normal working hours. I'm just saying just for a scale, eight hours a day. Yeah. Five days a week. Let's say you get two weeks off. So 50 weeks a year out of the 52. That's two thousand hours. That thing that steam was also put in as many hours as a normal human man. That's insane. Good for them. Yeah, good for them. I hope they got an award or a patch or something. I bet you they had some dope ear muffs they slept in. I'm sure they did because they can't be too far from the fog signal.

30:42 That's too bad. 1899. So before the turn of the century, the Keepers Cottage was converted to a duplex, which is what we have today is an improved lighthouse. Very nice. Although this picture is from 1892. So maybe there was some but it's a duplex. So maybe the year is wrong that I have written down. That's definitely a duplex. We've got two front doors. Yeah. So one of the years is wrong. But anyway, circa 1892, the inspection that was done in this year was a lot of trouble for the keepers. Or should I say the keepers were in a lot of trouble? No, the station was reported in, quote, deplorable condition and, quote, basically dust and rust everywhere.

31:30 There were greasy rags thrown, just strewn about. And they said the duplex was in like just a mess. They added a parlor for each one. It's basically the entryway. And they just made it storage space for all their stuff. So when you walk into their house, it's just piled with boxes and things. Yeah. They even said that the Fresnel lens was dusty. No shame for shame. It can get hot, right? Well, it just reduces the visibility of the light. And you already have bad conditions over there. So, yeah, just crazy bad marks everywhere. And West Quarry is considered a very comfortable light station because it's so close to South Lubeck, which is just the town.

32:18 And so this was like this was like a nice lighthouse to be stationed at. You should be thankful. And so as punishment, the current headkeeper was to be moved to a less desirable station. My mouth dropped whenever I read that. I was like, they just were like, you know, you have it too good. Yeah. Like you're not going to be thankful for the station. You're going to go somewhere worse. Show some respect. Yeah. So they were going to they were going to reposition him to Avery Rocklight and he quit. Do we know where that is? I don't. I don't. But apparently it's just a less someone out there is going, wow, a bad one. They said every rock light. Let's see. Every rock lighthouse is located also in Maine.

33:01 Oh, gosh. So it's on a it's on a little island. It says the rock encompasses only about a quarter of an acre. So that would not be very good. Back to the saltine crackers. Well, and this guy said that he worked there for seven years. So he quit because he was like, he said he could not go back. He said he couldn't handle going back to that lighthouse. So he just quit. I don't blame him. You know what? And if he wasn't going to take care of this light station, then good riddance. It sounds like an awful lot of work, especially after watching the film, The Lighthouse. Yeah. Robert Pattinson, William DeFoe. But you got to clean that for now. Come on. Windex. If anything's going to be in bad shape, like fine, let it be your house.

33:42 Although it's also unacceptable. Like they just. Yeah. Lighthouse keepers were held to a very high standard of cleanliness. They came over and they did this thing where they run their finger on a surface and take a look. I think they still do that in military service. I would imagine. They can bunk rooms and stuff. Yeah. Nineteen thirty four, the station was electrified and wasn't automated until nineteen eighty eight. So it's pretty late to be automated, to have no more keepers. Nineteen eighty eight. Wow. It is late. The lighthouse was transferred to Maine's Bureau of Parks and Land under the Maine Lights Program in nineteen ninety eight, which we talked about in the last episode, somewhere between nineteen thirty one and nineteen thirty five.

34:22 The light characteristic changed. And so today it's two seconds on, two seconds off, two seconds on, nine seconds off, which is kind of a special, a special light characteristic to have that it's like an asymmetrical series of eclipses. Yeah, I've never heard that one before, although I probably can't name any other ones that I've heard. I mean, they vary, but it's it's strange to have them have it varied like that. Yeah. Today you can tour the lighthouse in the summer months, which I thought was hilarious because it's mostly foggy. Not that like it's less special to see the lighthouse in the fog. It actually would be kind of cool. But the view it like the photo that I showed you in the beginning of the episode, the view is amazing.

35:07 If you can see it, if you catch a clear day, it'd be gorgeous. Yeah. Keepers Cottage is now a visitor center run by the West Quarry Head Lightkeepers Association. And the USLHS reports that you can actually stay in Lubeck at the former life saving station, which is only a five minute walk from the tower. So you can't rent out a room at the lighthouse, but you can be as close as a five minute walk. So it's very nearby. Interesting. Like a first responder station. Yeah, exactly. And I need to do an episode about that. Pretty. That we can cover. But that's gorgeous. Yeah. It's such a cute little lighthouse. I love it's the red top, the red little cap.

35:48 Yeah. It really is like where's Waldo. It's a great setting. The rock face and the thick grass and the evergreens. Yeah. Very pretty. Yeah. Another picture. Oh, yeah. That little beacon light. And how fun, yeah, to have a fresnel lens that's still in use. It's just not as common. Like a lot of people, you know, like our last episode, it was taken out of commission in 2017. So very late, but there's still some that are just still going. It's going to be a sad day when they're taken out. Yeah. I think people are trying to keep them. They're trying to keep lighthouses in good shape and maintain what they have. Yeah. I wonder why there are holes in the cupola for airflow. Oh, the vent ball.

36:31 Yeah. Yeah, that's just so that hot air can escape. I'm sure you wouldn't want the holes facing up because then water would come dripping in. Oh, does it allow ventilation from the lantern room? Yeah. OK. That does make sense. Cool. Yep. And the lightning round has a little forked tongue at the end. That is interesting. We're just discovering all these cute things about the close up. Yeah. That's West Quoddy Head Lighthouse, our eastern most lighthouse in the United States of America. Stripey and adorable. Quoddy. I cannot believe you hung on to that the whole episode. Quoddy.

37:11 Do you have anything else to add? No, I'm looking forward to the next couple of episodes. Appreciate everyone coming along for us. Yeah. Get excited. Our next one's spooky. It'll only post one day before, you know, spooky season's over. But I think the height of spooky season is not really Halloween focused. It's just spooky. So I think it should be a good one. We're very excited. Cool. But thanks for listening in. You can catch us on Instagram at Lighthouse Lowdown. Please feel free to send us emails or voicemail on our website, thelighthouselowdown.com. Of any lighthouse you visited, we love to do Listener Lighthouses. So feel free to do that, even if you just saw one one time and thought it was cool.

37:52 Or if you lived in one, send us an email either way. Check out our YouTube to see all of what we look at while we're doing our podcast. Please subscribe to keep us alive. Subscribe to keep alive. We get a lot of views now on YouTube, and I really appreciate that. Yeah. Checking this stuff out. But very we have very few subscribers out of those views. So we don't put out content more than once every two weeks. Really appreciate if you just click it. Thank you very much. Thanks for listening in, and we'll catch you next time on the Lighthouse Lowdown. Sounds so tropical.