Episode 52 - East Brother Light Station with Desiree Heveroh

0:00 Hey everybody, I'm Vince and I'm Emily and you're listening to the lighthouse lowdown. Welcome back to the show. Today we're sitting next to each other so it's very strange. I know so close usually we're two feet across from each other now we're one foot next to each other. Yeah now yeah we're doing a fun interview today so we had to sit next to each other for a camera. We're next to each other and we're in your ears. Yeah. Welcome. So today uh is kind of a different episode. I would ask you if you haven't to go back and watch I don't know which episode on East Brother Light Station. 20th episode. Which was Emily's. Yeah. And today I kind of helped to put together only because I monitor our YouTube. We had a super nice lady named Desiree Hevereau reach out to us on our YouTube for that episode about East Brother Light Station and she shared with us that she was actually one of the keepers there and helped to care for the light station through COVID uh through a massive two-month power outage and through a bunch of really interesting stories. Yeah. So today we're going to just jump right into the interview. Um we didn't record this intro with her so we'll jump into that recording now. Thank you for listening.

1:21 Hi guys. Good morning. How are you doing? I'm glad you could join us. I'm I'm doing all right and I'm glad I could join you too. Um this is always a little interesting to get started when we're recording and also doing video but the video is not recording so it's just us to hang out and we've got Bo Kat here with us. Yeah. I was gonna say who's that handsome baby. This is Bo. He likes to hang out while we do our podcast because if he's not on my lap then he's meowing so he's like in the back of our audio. Hi Bo. Yeah he's not wired in but um. He's got a little headset. First off how did you find our episode on East Brother Light Station? I mean anything that has to do with East Brother Light Station I seek out but then I also have Google alerts and you know just keeping tabs on my girl. That's awesome. So tell us about your experience there so starting from uh you're on the board is that correct of East Brother Light? Well I mean it goes back further than that. The first time I saw the light station I was crossing the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge well going from San Rafael back into Richmond. My daughter was in the car with me and she said what's that house out there on the water and I looked and I I was like I don't know and then for some reason it just kept you know like an earwig in my brain and so I looked up this was a while ago and the internet wasn't quite as fast or good as it is now. I'm like typing you know

2:55 house on island near San Rafael bridge you know and then I stumbled across what it was and the bed and breakfast and you know you couldn't take kids out there so I thought well that's that you know as a young mom what I could afford would be trips for my daughter for special occasions she you know we couldn't take her so but it just kept nagging at me like year after year I couldn't stop thinking about it and I was looking at the website and saw that there's volunteer opportunities to become a wiki that's what we call the volunteers in in honor of the olden days when people had to trim the wicks yeah to keep the lights going so we call the volunteers wikis so I signed up as a wiki and I was out there every set you know every once a month second Saturday of the month helping doing whatever needed doing and then I saw on craigslist they were advertising for someone to help with marketing and I thought oh why aren't you tapping into the volunteer base you know I could help with that and I suggested as much then I started attending board meetings to give my marketing reports and one board meeting they were talking about that it was going to be time to nominate for new board positions and I said hey I'm already coming I'm already doing this this thing so I would love to be a board member and they unanimously and happily approved my board

4:30 membership and I was a board member for a decade a volunteer for a year longer so 11 years of taking care of it from the back end and taking care of it like on site and then I decided well not decided I just realized at some point that I was actually meant to be on that island to exist on the island but the only way that you could do that is as an innkeeper for the bed and breakfast yeah as I knew as a board member so about three times three rounds I tried I tried I tried to find a captain I tried to make it work um piece it together I so desperate was my you know need to be there and just knowing and and over the course of 10 years it was very disappointing for it not to work out all of my friends and family would be like you know after 10 years they'd be like I know that's your wish I know that's your dream I know that you hope for that and I was like no you're not listening I'm supposed to be there I just know it and it was starting to make me like waver in my faith a little every time it wasn't working out but and I would think to myself how could I be so wrong about something I'm so sure about it the math just would not math yeah

6:04 and and then COVID hit and we had to close the BNB down and the keepers moved on because they couldn't make any money and we didn't have a backup plan nobody was expecting COVID uh and and everyone else on the board married houses grant you know established can't leave except me and I thought aha here it is how the math maths it turns a number into a variable and then it makes it work and I got the situation in so much better a way than anyone ever has you know I didn't have to work I wasn't out there on Coast Guard assignment I wasn't out there on board assignment as the innkeeper I just got to live there you know and they said well you know don't give up your your place your job uh we don't know you know sweet summer chill that we all were you know oh this will be fixed in a month you know everything will go back to normal and um you know if we were doing that you know mentally during COVID and I said I don't care if it's three weeks like you know this is fulfilling my destiny so like I'm going and then they said oh well okay if you're okay with it my my company closed down it was a tourism bureau situation so travel took a really big hit you know

7:35 yeah and the place that I was living in the in-law unit the house sold so I got a severance check I got a relocation check and I moved to the light station all in the same week wow so the universe was like hey you're not going to be able to work here's some money here's what you've always known you were going to have even better than you thought you were going to have it and uh that's how I came to be the light station keeper at East Brother light station for 14 months of the COVID 19 pandemic wow what a rare opportunity yeah things lined up sometimes and of course in many ways COVID shuffled everyone's life around yeah but that is an awesome place to land yeah it wasn't just lucky though and it's so clearly what was supposed to happen all along and restored my absolute faith in the the plan that you know just there's there's a plan even though it's taking so long you know it's it's because it's going to come to you better than you even wanted tell us about moving to East Brother light you said you did all that got your check you made the relocation all in a week and that was all in the same week early COVID times early COVID times I hadn't left my apartment after the quarantine at all I was definitely one of those like super scared super

9:05 freaked out I don't want to even breathe the air outside people um and so it was scary for me but I was like no no no I'm protected this is going to be okay I moved all my stuff into storage I took maybe like four bins four storage totes of things to the island because it's not easy taking anything on or off there's a small boat and then you've got a hoist you've got a big tall gang way that goes up to the to the island so you know the the the fewer items the better and again I didn't know how long it was going to be I didn't want to take too much I only took my summer clothes out there because I thought okay you know it'll be over soon and just enjoy it soak it up and every you know a couple months that kept adding and I was like my god maybe I'm gonna spend fall here maybe I'm gonna spend winter is am I gonna get to spend Christmas you know like every time it was just continued like gift yeah as far as being quarantined in islands about the best place that's a kind of a specific dream come true a very specific and I missed all of the stuff the six feet apart the everyone wearing met like I didn't have to deal with any of that I was probably the safest person in the world yeah those are okay things to have missed in my

10:36 opinion yeah yeah so go ahead did they bring you like supplies and things while you were out there so during that 14 month period no no I was responsible okay for for myself um because I was responsible for myself um but since the light station typically runs as a bed and breakfast there is two big massive pantries um sorry about that two big massive pantries um three commercial freezers uh two commercial refrigerate you know plenty and I brought like all my stuff you know having been super quarantining myself I was really stocked up I'm a very good cook um so I I filled everything up and it lasted a long time I had um produce and meat being delivered to the harbor uh so all I would have to do is drive the boat into the harbor pick up my box and then go back I never really had to go into the mainland and I never really wanted to um because any minutes that I lost were minutes that I would never get back yeah uh we like when we covered the episode we talked about how there was an innkeeper position available and there was a lot of requirements for being an innkeeper like you had to be able to drive the boat to pick up the people and cook amazing meals and everything so did you ever think that maybe after you left

12:09 the after it had all blown over that you would be able to pick up the innkeeper position and be able to do all those things or like were you prepared for being able to do all that the the keeper for running the bed and breakfast position is very demanding and does have a lot of and as as I'd mentioned I'd been trying to get that position yeah in that 10 years um but not having uh the partner uh of having with the captain's license you know all of that sort of thing it it just it couldn't work so and and I really just had convinced myself like I can piece this together I can find a captain no actually living out there you you can't just get to know someone that you're running a business you really have to have to have an established relationship yeah with a person so no it wasn't going to work for me to be the innkeeper but I didn't have to be I I got it in so much better of a way and I did have in the beginning there um Captain Jared Ward um who never gets enough credit in my opinion uh for all of his efforts and Captain Jared was out there as a co-light station keeper he was in the main building and he was uh teaching me how to drive the boat um how to fix equipment how to run the generators how to you know he taught me all of that while we while we were out there when he was out there he was still working he was being

13:41 chartered for boats and captaining so we wouldn't see each other too much but when when we he had downtime he was teaching me uh if we had a big storm and you know sections of the fence fell apart you know we had to we had to patch that up and how to you know refill the propane tanks and and all of that and we didn't know and again it's so interesting the the faded woven tapestry of it all that the power was going to go out yeah and you know the boat is up on a hoist and the hoist only works when there's electricity uh so Captain Jared couldn't get off the island and go to work and he said you know what uh you got about a half of a day with me to learn whatever else you need to learn but I've got to get off I have work so he strapped his dog to his chest got a backpack and launched a kayak in the water and paddled him his way back to the mainland and that was that I was there alone after that and thank god he had taught me everything that he taught me because I needed that to survive the no power days which were two months in totality so that yeah well how did that happen like how did the power go out and like how did how did you navigate that whole thing so it was the evening of March 31st and um up to 2021 and my lights started flickering in my

15:13 quarters and I stepped out and Captain Jared was out on the balcony of the historic building and everything was flickering and so we were looking at the mainland at shore to see if something was flickering on shore you know maybe it's just a general problem nothing was flickering except for with us and then everything went black and it was pretty late we were we were both going to go to sleep anyway he said we'll check it out in the morning I said okay so the morning is April Fool's Day April 1st and nothing no power for sure and so we called um the president of the board and let him know what was going on and uh again Jared said you know he got it got a couple hours with me but he was starting to get cagey like I gotta get off I'm trapped you know and it was uh poor his dog his poor dog Lena her face when they were kayaking she was so worried she was real low down onto the guy it's so cute and he said you know you you might need to think of he's like I he he would always say you know God Desiree like you never leave this place I know it's cool but you never effing leave and I said I don't want to leave I don't ever want to leave uh so then he said well now I know you don't want to leave but you might really have to consider leaving I don't

16:44 know what the problem is or how long it's going to be but this is something you might need to think about disregarded that because there was no way I was going to leave my girl in her darkest hour I wouldn't deserve the magic that she was giving me if I would just abandon her like that so it was a rough two months I would only get to shower like once a week I couldn't have like fresh um food you know dairy anything like that I was piecing together meals at the end it would be like crackers and broccoli you know from my garden it was fine it was fine I was happy to do it I would do it a million times over you're a real wiki yeah it's an adventure so uh when the power first went out I assume you had a cell phone was your main uh communications with the land the inland this was very complicated um yeah I had a cell phone uh we had a we have a generator from the 1930s bigger than me and because he's such an old guy you can't run him regularly or he like he gets tired I named him gentry so I could run him for about an hour a day I would charge I would plug in all my laptops and my phones and get full charges but I would use one of the laptops

18:15 specifically just as a battery pack because sometimes gentry did break and if I couldn't charge I couldn't call out in in a true emergency so I would never use up all my power just in case because gentry broke about five times um and the first time he broke um I didn't know what you know a piston from a pepperoni and I called the board they said you know we've got you know we've got our guys Steve Phillips of Penn Grove Power and Implement Museum he works on old antique machinery he will be able to to tell you what's going on at this point I had like 26 percent power left on my phone so I called him um and he's he's on an age but very smart like one of the smart is a whip so I talked him through how to download a duo so that we could like essentially facetime so that he could then see and talk me through how to take apart what he knew was going on yeah and it was like old technology meets new technology for the save right um and so he sent a part down with a board member who drove it to the harbor and then the harbor master who was having engine trouble of his own rode it out to me and then called Steve again so that he could show me

19:51 how to install it and fix the the generator my gosh full team effort absolutely all hands on deck and I got so good uh with that generator I could smell if something was off I could hear if something was off and um it was my only source of power so I was really protective of it and I needed that power because then of course the whole world found out about the no power situation and news articles people were calling the gofundme account was up and I felt like it was such a critical time to somehow to touch every person who called because maybe that person knew uh someone else and the money was coming in and I I was using the power up every day just trying to just reach people's hearts about saving it because at that point we understood it was a failed submarine cable okay um and even though it was the responsibility of the coast guard uh they they didn't really want the million dollar price tag right um the cable itself was 150 000 laying it was like another 800 000 and and they said you know our real obligation is to keep the light flashing so we'll stick a solar panel up there and be done yeah and I said but that leaves us with no power to run the bnb

21:21 it was kind of a well then that's your that's your problem isn't it I mean you guys can come up with the the money so yeah and I was actually watching the light too it it was like living back in time I can't tell you it was like a time machine so it is an active aid to navigation the light has to flash when I would run the generator it would power the backup batteries which had about 72 hours on them but when the generator would break I couldn't recharge those batteries and so the coast guard said I had to keep an eye and if the light wasn't flashing then they would have to issue a state of emergency to get like you know a backup um generator funded by the coast guard out there so I was literally keeping the light during that time as well so it was um such a unique such a unique time traveling experience yeah so cool and so horribly stressful there was a lot of steps uh to having no power but I wasn't stressful I was excited to rise up to whatever challenge the day brought and it would be habitual things but then the occasional oh crap

22:51 gentry broke or you know the day tank is leaking and half of my diesel fuel is all over the floor you know like what do I do you know yeah so it sounds like you were busy to say the least yeah but what was what was the day to day like before and then during the power failure did it was there a significant change it sounds like all these activities you were doing absolutely so before you know if it was just a regular you know non-rainy non-windy day I could just do whatever came if it was particularly windy I would do inside things if it was particularly nice I would do outside things I kind of started to befriend a raven who I named Edgar Allen so great focus was spent every morning on trying to get him closer yeah you know I'd spend a good hour trying to get Edgar closer and I could get him about three feet away from me and then Edgar took a wife oh Brandy Alexander and she would never get near me but I would feed them every day and then I would have to keep the seagulls away from the Raven's peanuts because he was priority I would throw them some stuff too there was a week long wonderful period of life where you know everything was hatching and there were so many nests because there weren't guests walking around all the time there were nests everywhere I mean hanging safety goggles had little nests built into the eye socket

24:27 everywhere and there was a duck that had a nest right outside of my entrance that I was watching anyway one of her ducklings got stuck in the brush and she couldn't get it out so she left the duckling left the duckling and then I was like I'm her mother now you know I can do this for her so raising a little duckling um feeding Edgar and Brandy uh is looking for rainbows if it was a rainy tending to my garden uh duolingo all the things that you say if you had infinite time oh grow a garden oh I'll learn a language oh you know like I was doing all of that stuff um when the power went out the the tasks went up quite a bit um I was having to when the generator would be on I'd have the ice machine on so I had to get buckets of ice to keep the one freezer you know I had some blocks of stock acting as like blocks of ice and the one freezer for some kind of protein so I would have to swap out the ice um twice a day I had to gather kindling every evening because it was cold like you can see your breath cold still at the light station so every morning I needed to start a fire um and a funny anecdote because I'd been feeding Edgar and Brandy for months and months

25:58 and they say ravens and crows will bring you presents right yeah and I nothing and not that I was you know I was still gonna feed them whatever but I was like okay maybe these ones just you know don't um but when the power was out and they had seen me gathering kindling and every night they started leaving me bundles of twigs that's awesome from trees that weren't at the light station so they were bringing them over for me because that's what they saw me like needing and I just how do you not melt yeah ravens are supposed to be incredibly intelligent I wonder if they're helping you out they knew what they were doing they absolutely were helping me out indisputably that's incredible so was power restored via a new submarine cable or solar system or what what happened there so we raised um a fair amount of money in a short amount of time we were able to pay a company to splice the cable which is not a long-term or permanent fix but you can get some years out of a splice and um the regulations were kind of starting to lift and it was time to start talking about uh reopening the bnb with a little bit more regulation like the people would have to prove that they were vaccinated and you know everything was getting double extra clean and um the splice would hold long enough that we could reopen the bnb

27:30 try to recoup some of our financial losses and try to put aside some more money towards the permanent fix of the submarine cable so yeah it's right now it's living on spliced power that's incredible so i haven't had any recent touches with east brother light so it sounds like the airbnb is back up to speed normally receiving guests nice yeah it reopened september of 2021 okay so was that effectively uh ended like your care of the lighthouse or were you able to stay there a little longer i stayed until august of 2021 um late august and we had and we had contacted um some former keepers let me i cannot emphasize this enough and people really don't understand how hard these keepers work it is more than 24 7 they don't have days off it's difficult it is hard hard work and keepers turn over approximately every two years sometimes a little less sometimes a little bit more i've been through so many keeper interview processes and we weren't getting i don't want to say good enough but i'm gonna say good enough we weren't getting good enough applicants and we reached out to some former keepers who since leaving the light station were living on their sailboat having adventures around the world

29:04 and they had been there for three years when they were keepers and they were willing to come back and that's really the only way you could really restart it up um and add the components of all the covet precautions to someone who has already done it that was the only way it was going to work yeah so brian and stephanie came back for about two years and now there's um there's drey and charity that are out there and they've been out there for about a year and the next set of keepers will and on and on it goes like it has since 1980 that's so cool so much responsibility and customer service all down to two people you have to have elite elite interviews yeah what is that process like what do you see between the candidates is that something you can discuss sure uh we'll get applications we'll weed down the ones that we think have a strong chance we interview them sometimes we do second rounds of interviews um we give them scenarios we ask them questions we give them the reality of the situation you know do you think you can handle you know not having a life outside of this for yeah you know two years most people's family milestones happen on weekends birthdays celebrations graduations babies being born weddings you're not going any of that are you going to be okay with that you know what how would you handle a guest who x y and z because we've had that

30:37 and and we have had situations where we'll choose a set of keepers and then when the magnitude of it really hits them they back out oh no we've had to go with like our third and fourth option sometimes um because that's how it works out we've had people that before the two years is up they're like you know what i can't we we've got to go we don't make anybody stay and we just start the process again one year the hunt went viral so where we would get maybe six real applicants this time we had thousands of applicants and and we had to you know weed through each one of them 50 55 were viable candidates well it felt like we were interviewing all the time that that round i mean we were three four times a week having to convene as a board interviewing all of these applicants taking it seriously so viral has its its uh pluses and minuses yes my gosh that sounds like a lot of dedication so are you still are you still on the board or are you still helping with that process or are you kind of moved on from east brother i in my heart i will never move on from east brother that is the great love of my life and i am not by my decision or my desire at all i am no longer a board member

32:12 um i don't want to get into that part of it um because you know people can ruin good things other people and egos but i just really i don't want to take away from how wonderful and how magical and i don't want anyone to be like oh well that's not right i won't go there go there yeah don't don't shoot yourself in the don't miss out go there everyone should go there it is going to be one of the top three best experiences of your life i don't hold bad feelings i still love the light station i still want people there yeah well there's some other things i saw it sounds like your life is full of adventure the hotel mac the ss red oak are just some that popped up in my quick search of you and i'm sure it's an incomplete list also volunteer burning man richmond museum association but i'm sure the incomplete list of previously interviewed by united states lighthouse society richmond standard richmond pulse east brother beer company which i enjoyed in world of nuance that recent youtube video that was huge um do you have any ideas about or maybe you already have recording some of your adventures whether it be audio recordings or writing a book or something like that or something i do have plans for a book i thought it was just going to be about the light

33:44 station and then things just kept happening for me um the light station just filled me up with the light station just filled me up with this magical light and ever since then i'm just it's like a magnet for these amazing adventures and i'm still in it so there's not really time to to write it because i'm it's still writing itself essentially right and it's kind of nice to have some time because your perspective on things changes with time and i think to have a well-rounded perspective before i put pen to paper will be helpful and um i already have the title for the light station book i'll be our brother's keeper nice and the aisle is i s l e love it right sorry you're ahead of it yeah reading about all this and watching your interviews and everything after august of 2021 where did life take you after that so i think it was around july that i got a phone call from the richmond museum association i had been a board member there for two terms so they were they knew me and everyone knew me when the power went out and i think i really proved my metal to people who would look at me and say there's no there's no way this girl's gonna you know do these things or deal with this stuff i i think i really proved myself um you know tough

35:17 and pioneering and so uh the shipkeeper position there's two shipkeepers that can trade off and came up and they said hey you know would you be interested and and i thought again with the plant look at how it all just lines up and i said sure and i said when does it start and they said late august which is when i was moving off the light station yeah perfect so i walked down the gangway of the light station and i walked up the gangway to the ship on the same day to take my stuff and i was so nervous about you get used to you get used to things i got used to the sound of the water the sound of the seagulls um not worrying about a calendar or a clock i was so nervous about what my next step was going to be and and fully immersing back into the mainland and you know all the people and so it was nice to still kind of be on the outskirts to still hear the seagulls to still hear the water um to be on a ship that i had been visiting for years of my life i didn't even need to be shown around i knew my way around already um and it was so cool it was so cool and then two months after that i got a phone call about

36:50 being the innkeeper at the hotel mac from a childhood friend who was the current innkeeper and moving on and i said well sure i can i can do both and then two months after that the richmond museum association said hey the executive director of the museum is leaving we're thanking you and i thought i don't know if i can tell all of that but i'll try and that was a hard year 2022 was 22 was a year very little sleep and no time off whatsoever but i i did it you know i did all three and i just continue to make myself proud yeah that's amazing yeah it sounds like you've got a great pulse on richmond you're uh you're very well connected you know more than most and you're right in there something i like to bring up we talk about lighthouses um so i don't know the san francisco bay area too well but east brother light is most near richmond is that right that's correct and it's in a really rough channel which is why there needs to be in a lighthouse in the first place um that's where i learned how to drive a boat oh my gosh right yeah there was a lot of yelling and crying it's like trying to drive a manual and rush hour traffic is your first time it's it's even harder well driving the boat on the open waters fine it's trying to land the fine details of landing because you know you're wanting to get in in their small detailing nuances and the

38:22 water is just like pushing you wherever it wants to push you yeah and we've had a lot of adventures um is there anything else you want to talk about today or questions for us so um if i could share some historic anecdotes that i think are particularly um interesting and or parallel uh to experiences um you guys obviously are familiar with the stenmark era so the exit that you take to get to the light station was renamed stenmark drive in honor of the stenmarks um tom butt who is president of the east brother light station non-profit he was also the mayor of richmond for eight years he had it changed to honor the stenmarks and we've had stenmark descendants come out to the light station to be on the grounds of their you know their ancestors which has been particularly special um so the stenmarks went there with two children and they had two children while they were out there um captain stenmark having to row to san quentin to fetch a doctor both times and you know there's no there's no real mention because at that time of course you don't complain right but who knows what the conditions of the water were what the weather was whether it was nighttime or i think about these things all the time just here i am getting my you know kindling thinking oh i'm true grit but captain stenmark was true grit you know

40:00 um and they were out there for 22 years which is amazing um initially they there was a teacher that was sent um by the you know county to come teach the children so she would stay in the the the little school house uh quarters which are now the innkeeper the innkeeper's quarters which is where i where i was living um and then when the train came um then they changed it uh so that the the stenmarks would have to row the kids to shore and the kids would ride the train in into town to go to school but you don't think about things like that um when uh one of their daughters was older a gentleman who worked for standard oil which is now chevron uh would row out to court her and at the beginning he wasn't very good but he became very fluent and rowing you know to come to come and court her and of course they were married and um so the stenmark days are fascinating to me and i had uh you know there's different types of dreams sometimes there's dreams that are not dreams so i had a lot of those when i lived out there i mean i was just constantly getting messages and prophetic dreams um one of them in particular lady stenmark um and an accompanist were coming up from the north shore of the island which is not where the dock is now but it is where it was during that time so uh lady stenmark came up

41:33 she was all in victorian garb you know and she's pointing at all of the things that were different and then she sees me and she points at me and then she points down and i look down and suddenly i'm standing in the garden and there's this swiss chard growing all around me so it was clear that lady stenmark wanted me growing chard in my garden and i put six plants out there so and they did really well um so that's my stenmark that's my little like stenmark story and and then after the stenmarks were the kofads and they had two grandchildren and their daughter who lived in berkeley little walter and emma fanning um their their dad was away at world war one and the spanish influenza was ravishing the world much like we were dealing with during covid so um walter and emma's grandparents the kofads said you guys are moving out here to the light station to escape the flu and so i was living at the light station escaping the flu and walter as a very old man in the 70s when the coast guard wanted to demolish the the structures and the non-profit formed and the historic designation was given walter was there as president of the board he was

43:04 on that light station uh day in and day out working towards the restoration with his own hands he built himself a little a little room that he would sleep in because you know he was there all the time and we subsequently turned that room into walter's quarters yeah as a place where the guests can stay um where wal- good old wal used to stay i never met him myself but um i think that anyone who i get all emotional anyone who loved the light station like that like me i have so much respect for so my little duckling who i found i named her dakota fanning after walter so after walter fanning and i moved every historic artifact that had to do with walter and his um and the kofads into walter's quarters area so not only do you get to see the kofads not only do you get to stay in his quarters you get to see all of the things that um are from his lineage from his history there at the light station um so that's my walter panning story um and then i mentioned that the day tank was leaking diesel fuel one time because i came in to turn the

44:35 generator off and everything was wet i lived completely feral out there i never wore shoes and you know nothing fancy so i walk into this wetness and i like freak out you know apparently diesel is a little different than gas it's not as flammable i didn't know that though at the time and i was thinking oh my god you know i i threw my cell phone out of the building you know in case it rang or something you know you know spark you know and i'm picturing a fire much like the fire that happened um in the boathouse uh poor willard who who burned his hands all up trying to fan that fire out the whole gangway burned up i don't even know how they they got out there to them it was just uh but i i poured flour and baking soda and any powders that i had to like soak it up it was just the scariest day and i thought oh god and now i understand like the panic that he must have gone through like you know the uh the responsibility that was on his shoulders like that and it it was like walking in the feet of history out there there were a lot of parallels and i'm infinitely grateful i i could never explain how grateful i am to have had to be gathering that kindle kindling to had to be smelling for a week before i could shower to

46:10 had to be not eating correctly for those two i'm so grateful for all of that yeah and especially like at that time no one else was willing to do it in the lighthouse needed somebody like you and that's why the time had gone on so long without being able to fulfill your dream is that you're you're being saved for a specific moment where nobody else would be able to fill that hole so it's amazing yeah and and i thought about that too i thought this is why it has to be me who else was gonna do that who else destiny man yeah it's a really it's a really neat thing there's all kinds of crazy spiritual unexplainable stories like your prophetic dreams and those kind of um like the destiny sort of things a lot of those things happen around lighthouses it just seems like it's kind of like a path to another world that people experience all kinds of crazy stuff it it changes a person though too or it did me i i got to sit down and watch the most beautiful sunsets every night you know i i wasn't interested in tv the birds would all come in from wherever all the directions encircle west brother and land and the sunsets behind it were just and now i i look at sunsets as such beautiful overwhelming things um on my birthday it was raining and usually that would suck right out here but it meant that i had rainbows all day all throughout the sky

47:44 all throughout the sky on my birthday a gift from my light station and it it changed me yeah my friend gary at the harbor he always says oh dez you saved her she saved me that's incredible a lot of people say you know they win the lottery one of their plans is to to find an island and throw away their cell phone i think it's a different context but uh we're all looking for something like that some real experience especially with a lighthouse and all that history to connect with i think uh you know the the sitting in the sand with a with a drinking hand is a different idea but it's kind of the same hope that people have some adventures some history some stories and something real to connect with absolutely and not all of us are so fortunate and and gratitude is an amazing healer yeah so so your experience with i don't want to speak for you but it's meant to be a question your experience with each brother light and your i'll say spiritual connection to it those dreams that you have these feelings that you have how has that gone into your other work that you've done because from meeting you online and also watching other recordings and videos of you it seems like you carry that passion around is that just all over the place you see through a different scope now completely different scope i um i i still believed in a lot of um you

49:14 know universe and juju and all of that before going out there but it's so much more intense now like i never questioned the signs and the signals now they're they are out there the the day before the keepers were coming back on to like get things restarted my last official day alone at the lighthouse i walked out to the garden in the morning to you know feed feed the birds and i saw this it was on one of my squash leaves and i saw this thing happening with some cocoon uh and i thought let me go run and get my phone but then i thought no no no this is just for me yeah so i sat there for about an hour and i watched this this thing that i mean this is going to sound gross but this is what it was this thing came out of it that was the color of pus like not quite yellow not quite green kind of creamish and it like opened up its wings and dried out and slowly started turning red and getting its spot i watched a ladybug be born oh my gosh and and fly away and it was such a a reassuring message to me because of course i knew that the you know time was going to come this isn't forever i'm going to have to leave of course i'm going to be sad about it of course right but it was like a message from the from the island like

50:48 you are also being born a ladybugs are symbols of hope as well isn't that right or is it luck maybe i don't know i'm losing it i think there's some either way either way what a wonderful reassuring you're okay you're safe we still got you we always talk about or at least i do i bring it up every community that we talk with someone about their lighthouse their local lighthouse of course we're a little bit biased because we're already in the lighthouse circle right that's how we start the conversation but it seems to be culturally significant and i think that is not so much in the physical presence of lighthouses but people's experiences you know they have memories they travel with family they go out there sometimes they see ghosts you know there's all sorts of stories and even to modern day with people living around lighthouses and i think it's we've talked with folks and this always comes up maybe i always bring it up but it just seems so significant to me it's it's really been a pleasure to hear some of your experiences out there yeah today because we everyone loves history we love to read and hear about things that have happened but when you're talking about living history about modern day events and feelings that may or may not be captured you know by a cell phone like you said or in a book or on an interview there's so much of life that is not recorded but it's really special it's it's something to appreciate it it's really cool

52:24 absolutely and i i have a respect for lighthouses they keep ships from sinking and um it's a it's a i i i i respect lighthouses i do um but people always say oh here look at this lighthouse or let me get you this lighthouse statue oh you love lighthouses don't you i love a lighthouse yeah and by proxy all of her cousins you know but i love a lighthouse yeah she's mine we have something that no one else has had and that no one else could ever take from me yeah incredible desiree you have anything else you want to talk about today no um thank you guys for keeping the light on uh and spreading the word about um our beautiful lighthouses that are just few and far between more and more these days yeah and we're so grateful that you could talk to us and share all of your genuine experiences with the lighthouse because you know in our episodes we cover the history and things that we find online but the real feelings so like the genuine human experiences there can't really be captured in just short summaries of things that happen in history so we love to be able to expand especially on specific lighthouses on those really really real things it's really real and it's really hard i know that i'm over here like rainbows and magic

53:56 but it was hard living it was really hard living and so i respect our forefathers in a way that i didn't before yeah definitely i don't know how to end it any better than that it's such a pleasure okay sounds good well keep in touch uh let you know when this airs and uh see what we can help you with or talk to you about in the future yeah definitely great thanks so much and i'll send you tons of stuff and you can pick what you want okay thank you so much thank you all right bye guys bye well that was a fun interview what are we like 80 years old yeah um i'll just say uh you wouldn't even let me do it you just do it so check us out on our website the lighthouse lowdown.com you can send us an email the lighthouse lowdown at gmail.com and you can check out our instagram we have a youtube uh you can listen our podcast anywhere um all of that you can find on our website thank you vince for planning this interview and executing it oh so Vince is mad at me you say bye see you next time on the lighthouse lowdown bottom all the way no

55:48 you