Episode 78 - Cape Fear Lighthouse

0:01 Hi, everyone. I'm Emily. And I'm Vince. And this is The Lighthouse Lowdown. Hi. We just stared at each other. Oh, I had a long day. Model review, you know. Yeah. Our listeners should know that every time that intro is playing. it's live for us. So it's not, you know, we're just staring at each other dancing or something. Yeah. It's usually fun. Sometimes I feel the pressure impending that I have to say something when it's over. So I'm like, Oh no. Oh, Oh, I got to think of something. But anyway, I got a good episode coming at you today and I had a lot of good ideas that I could use for the history buoy that would correspond with this episode. Nice. And I went with a light ship. So that's what we're going to do for our history buoy. A specific light ship? Yes. Great.

1:01 And this is a name that's shown up a few times while I've been researching or traveling or whatever. And I'm like, that's funny. And it's the frying pan shoals. So I'm going to talk about that today. Which corresponds with our light ship, of course. Nice. Yeah. The history buoy is the frying pan light ship, specifically LV -115. Because you know how any light ship that was assigned, people should go listen to our light ship episode. I can't remember what it was, like 50 -something? Light ships. Yeah. And you can get educated on the numbering system. But any light ship that was stationed somewhere got the name frying pan.

1:45 So there were several frying pan light ships. But the one I'm talking about is the longest serving one. So first of all, what are the frying pan shoals? We're in North Carolina, outside of Cape Fear. Oh, cool. So I put a little picture up of, you can see the stars of the lighthouses that we covered in our Outer Banks episode. The Outer Banks. So south of that, almost to whatever state is below North Carolina. South Carolina? Wait, I didn't get a chance. Whatever state is south of North Carolina. I didn't get a chance to use my brain before I said that. I was in auto mode. But yes, so closer to South Carolina, we have Cape Fear. And even when you pull up Google Maps, you can see this dark spot in the ocean. And that is our frying pan shoals. And they said that it was called that because it looks like a frying pan. And I disagree. Is there a different view where maybe it looks like a frying pan? No. Maybe like a frying pan held sideways. Yeah. But that's... Well, even like the panhandle of Oklahoma. Yeah. Oh. Panhandle of Texas. Frying panhandle. I don't know. I kind of get that. It kind of looks like a lodge cast iron. Okay. Sponsored by. Like North Carolina is a big weird shaped pan and that's the handle.

3:16 Who knows? That's what I'm thinking. Okay, so that's what's coming up in my brain. Anyway, it's about 18 miles long and it's like a shifting shoal. So like the sands move, which is what makes it so dangerous is that you can't really like predict where the edges are going to be. Okay. And it's southeast of Cape Fear, North Carolina. And it's made of silt and sand deposited from the Cape Fear River. So that's what we have up. This area was, quote, dreaded by shipmasters only a little less than those at Cape Hatteras. And we know that Cape Hatteras, outside of Cape Hatteras, was considered the graveyard of the Atlantic. So this was obviously a high contender for places you've got to worry about when you're sailing around North Carolina. Or, you know, on the east coast of the U .S. So two lighthouses were built in the area in 1794 and 1817, but both were not good enough to mark the outer edges of the shoal because you'd have to have a pretty powerful light to make it 18 miles. Yeah, it's a big panhandle. Yeah, so if you go anything less than all out, it's not going to work. So that's kind of what happened. These lighthouses that were made to mark were the first of baldhead lighthouses, which I briefly mentioned, but we'll have to do an episode on them some other time.

4:33 Because of that, because these lighthouses weren't good enough, they added on top of that a light ship to be placed in 1854. Did I say ordered? Ordered a light ship? I don't know. Placed an order for a light ship. Overstock .com. Just like ordering a new car. I mean, you do have to order it from a shipbuilder. Yeah. Oh, and I actually have a picture. I'll show you of it in production. Oh, cool. Eight light ships served this location from 1854 to 1930. And 1930 is when LV -115 took over at the Shoal. And that's the one that I'm covering today. So there was this long chunk of history in which there were light ships, but none of them had quite an extensive history as... our LV -115. So that's what I'm going to refer to from here on out as the frying pan lighthouse. Cool. Lightship. Hold. So here I pulled up a picture of when it was being built.

5:34 So they build the hole first and then they put it in the water and then they finish building the rest of the lightship, which is interesting. It's a cool photo. Yeah, so there's a couple cool ones of it being built and mainly this is just to show like it's... Double -masted, had lights on top of each one. Oops. We love that. So it was built in 1929, as we can see from our screen. And it had the classic bright red hole with the large white letters that says frying pan. That's awesome. Yeah, so we saw a lot of those, and it's kind of the staple for light chips, especially in the U .S. It had a crew of 15 people, but only 10 would serve at a time.

6:15 So they'd serve for 28 days and then get 14 days off is usually how it went. Nice. The light ship was active from 1930 until World War II when it served as an examination vessel, which I don't know what that is. I forgot to look it up. Examination vessel in World War II? Yeah. I would guess like approaching ships. Yeah, maybe. I don't know. But that was from 1942 to 1945. And after this, it was placed back on the shoals until 1964. So it's a solid 30 years of it being out on the water, which if you listen to our light ships episode, you'll hear that it was actually very hard on a ship to be out in open water like that.

6:59 And especially anchored. There was a lot of stories about this ship in like hurricanes and whatnot. It's difficult for a ship to be more down during a storm because it wears it. Like, it's not a... So much stress on the anchor chain. Yes. And the ship being jerked around. It's all attached. Yeah. So, that's a long time to be out on the shoals. And, of course, it would come in every, like, two years for maintenance or something. So, they were keeping it together. 1964. Picture there. A light tower resembling an oil drilling platform was built, which is also called the Texas Tower. So this is a specific type of lighthouse that was built. I think that it said that there was like 10 or something. I think, I think, I think. I think. I think that we have seen one of these before. I can't remember the term Texas Tower, but I swear maybe an explosion or a research station, some story associated with a tower that looked just like this. Yeah, we've had a few out on the water, but I don't know if we've had a Texas tower before. Or maybe we've just come across them but not done an episode on it. Yeah.

8:07 But yeah, it's a cool picture. The light ship circled it and blasted its whistle three times before departing for good. A little goodbye. Shame. So that's a cool picture of this light tower officially relieving. Frying pan light ship of its duties. 1965, the light ship was decommissioned and donated to a museum in Southport, North Carolina. This is where it all goes downhill. Budget issues killed this museum and the ship sank before anyone could figure out what to do with it. Wait, what? Yes. Like where they had the museum because people were like, what are we going to do with it? At a port? Or like wherever the... Like, it was a maritime museum, so wherever it was floating just went down. Oh, man. I know.

8:56 At some point, and it wasn't clear when, the light ship was refloated and drained before sinking again in Whitehaven, Maryland in 1983. So that's the double sinker. All this time, it survives. Tale of the frying pan. Never gets sunk during service. And then afterwards, in its retirement, it gets sunk twice. After three years of staying underwater, it was righted, which, doing so, tore off one of its masts. Oh, man. Old age is a bitch. Terrible. And it was sold to a John Crevy, I think it's pronounced, for $8 ,000, who spent weekends with his friends shoveling crap out of the ship, like muck and barnacles and whatnot. And once it was all cleaned up, they sailed it to New York, where it served as a restaurant, bar, dance club. That's awesome.

9:49 The frying pan. Yeah, and they said they left a bunch of the barnacles and some stuff on the inside. Cool. and filled it with all kinds of eclectic things. So it was like this whole experience. I'd be so excited to go to a bar that was a sunken ship. It'd be kind of difficult to get drunk on a ship. No, it wouldn't. Well, I'm thinking of Vertigo. History suggests that is not true. Oh, true. Yeah, I guess true. It was floating, though, as a bar? I think so, yeah. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Then after that, it was forced to move to another pier in New York City. So it was in a pier. I'm not gonna be able to remember what number pier it was, but then it got moved to 66A, Pier 66A, because they were doing construction on Hudson Park or something. I didn't make notes.

10:43 I don't know. But anyway, so they had to move it, but it reopened in 2008 and remains today as the Pier 66 Maritime Bar and Grill. And you can sit on the deck and have cocktails and fancy seafood. Like I attached the website for this place and it looks so good. No chance you're going to show it to me. No. Okay. Pier 66. Maritime Bar and Grill. Okay. Noting. Well, the website is just called. fryingpan .com. What? Yes. Hold on. I would pull it up, but it's too difficult with how we project our screen now. Yeah, fryingpan .com. Cool logo, I must say. Mm -hmm. I'll probably just put that on our cover. Okay. Without asking anybody. Oh. Look at that. Yeah, it's pretty.

11:36 Little red outline. It only has the one mast. The one mast. Which is accurate. Mm -hmm. Wow. Lore accurate. I wonder if this is valued by the patrons. Yeah, like if you're interested. Because I noticed there's no tab on that website for the history of the light ship. So I'm wondering if it's just very food forward. Like it's more of a, like, oh, it's on a ship. How cool is that? Without it being, tell me all about it. There's an art history. Oh, there is. Okay, good. Yeah, shows the frying pan image. Oh, yeah. That was a long description. Okay, good. I don't want to go too crazy on here, but that's awesome. I'd love to go. Yeah, see, it's on our list now.

12:17 Yeah, but we can't. What, what? New York in the wintertime. I bet we can't sit on the deck. It's got teak furniture. Why do you say wintertime? Well, because we're talking about going to New York in the wintertime, potentially. I sent you a video of Canada in the wintertime. In Banff. I don't know what that is. It's not near New York. It's West. I'm not talking about New York. What is going on? You're talking about New York for Christmas. No. Yes. When? We're talking about an option for after our wedding. Oh. Wow. That must have been vetoed in my head or something because I have no memory of that. We talked about Branson, Missouri. And so I was like, oh, well, something. big like new york is probably out of the question anyway um i pulled up a picture of uh the frying pan light ship this was in 2006 so it was before it opened in the other pier and as a part of the restaurant that's available now so but just for you to see the the lettering the bright color the single mast it's pretty cool that's crazy i can't believe they broke the mast riding the ship and then What does it take to weld that thing back on? Well, it was owned by a guy, you know, at that point. So, yeah, he's probably not like, oh, I better make this historically accurate. He's probably just

13:48 like, it was a sunken ship. I might as well just get it as close as I can. And then there was one. Yeah. Pretty cool, though. It's probably in someone's house. The other mast? Yeah, it's probably a staircase. The center of a spiral staircase. yeah so that's um we come across this uh light ship again in this episode so it was either that i covered the shoals in depth or the light ship or i forgot this was the buoy i'm having a great time oh good yeah it's a double whammy because now we are heading into our lighthouse for the day and so don't forget we're in north carolina cape fear And the first lighthouse ever built in North Carolina was to mark this frying pan shoals because we heard about how dangerous it is. Of course. Pulled up another photo just of all the marked shipwrecks we have. There's a lot of them. Along here. It's very clear where the shoal lies. Yeah, it's a nice map. If you ever want a map of a shoal, just let all the ships wreck and then show where those are. Yeah, and then it just outlines it perfectly. Yeah, so they show where the light ship. was on here and also where the tower is now so oh cool yeah that's it's a very cool map lots lots of good stuff in there but as i was saying baldhead lighthouse did a poor job and so then the light ship was anchored on the far edge to market in 1854 and the annual report of the lighthouse board of 1889 said in part that while the light ship was indispensable and they weren't planning on getting

15:18 rid of it it also was frequently torn from its mooring during storms and had a small range for lighting the shoals because obviously it's just the end and so it's just like they didn't have any way to reliably have this one object that marked the shoals it was like a combination like i read a little bit on baldhead and it For a while it was by itself, and then they got a new one, and then they made it a range light, and also there's a light ship in there, so it just kind of got too convoluted. And so they requested a lighthouse on the tip of Cape Fear, and you can see from this map as well that really this is all a bunch of little islands. I can't remember.

15:59 I think it's called Smith Islands or something. Okay. So towards the end there, that's not like the end of land. It's like just a bunch of little broken up islands, which can be said for a lot of the Outer Banks too. Yeah. Oh, Vince is looking something up. I'm sorry. No. I don't mean to go off track. There's a gulf island. What's it called? Frick? What the frick? Something like that. Every time I go to the maps when we're on here, it just doesn't work. Forget about it. Okay. It might be out there. Golf is on your mind. Yeah, there's always a golf course nearby.

16:39 They wanted a lighthouse out here with a range that would fully encompass the shoals instead of it being like, I'm pretty sure Bald Head started as a third order light and then switched to a fourth order light. Neither of those are going to reach 18 miles out. And even more, because you have to be warned in advance. Yeah, hopefully. Yeah. Like, I see the light now that we're stationary. And in this report, it's also noted that there's no first order lights between Cape Lookout and Cape Romaine, which is about 170 nautical miles apart. Pretty significant. They suggested a 150 -foot masonry tower and requested $150 ,000.

17:21 And the board repeated this request from 1890 to 1897. But Congress didn't bite until they more than halved the request to $70 ,000 instead of $150 ,000. And then they approved it. They sent half, $35 ,000, to begin the project in 1898. And then the other half was in 1901. And so while they could still make this lighthouse 150 feet tall because of the cut in budget, it meant that they had to go with a different look. So in 1903, Cape Fear Lighthouse was completed as an octagonal iron skeletal lighthouse equipped with a first order Fresnel lens. Pulled up a really nice picture. Bungalows. This Fresnel lens was the one that we talked about in our Mercury floats episode as like the heaviest, biggest Mercury float system they've ever made.

18:13 And it was like 6 ,000 pounds altogether. So the lens was over six feet in diameter. and had 24 flash panels and produced a white flash every 10 seconds. So that's a lot. Think about 24 panels. It's like a lot more than your average. Very complex piece. Brunel, yeah. The tower was painted white. So this picture that I have pulled up, there's a little bit of black up top. That happened later. Originally, it was all white, which you can imagine is difficult to see against blue sky. So that's why they added that in there. They had three keepers' houses that were built in a row, and they were all white as well. I think I read that they had green shutters or something. Cool. I like it when they're all neat like that. Yeah, it's a really nice construction.

18:58 Lined up cute. Little porches. I wonder what those two other buildings are. Do you know if those are additions or other offices? I didn't make a note. Outhouses? They're probably outhouses. They look pretty big. Yeah, they look... I can't make any guesses. I don't know. The fact that there's two identical ones makes it complicated. Maybe they're work sheds. I've read some places have work sheds. I would say oil houses, but you'd only need one. Yeah. I don't know. Don't know. Questions out there. So once this lighthouse was established, the bald head lighthouse was changed to a fixed fourth order light because they were both flashing. So make it less complicated by changing the other one. There were only three head keepers in this lighthouse's history. Wow.

19:49 I know. Well, also because it didn't last like super long. It's just, yeah, pretty quick. But the first was Captain Charles Swan. Awesome name. The son of the captain of the frying pan light ship. So it runs in the family. Incredible. And he served from 1903, which was the beginning of the lighthouse, to 1933. So 30 -year service at this lighthouse. Long time. Especially for a son. What? I just, I don't know. Like someone who's like, I'll do what my dad did. And five years later. But on land, yeah. But this guy did a full career. Yeah. And these are some things that happened during his service. The lantern room was painted black in 1906. So it was a pretty quick turnaround from, you know how slow things move in the lighthouse world. Yes. And so only three years after beginning service to change the day mark of a lighthouse is pretty quick.

20:49 1915, the board requested $35 ,000 to move the lighthouse, which was denied and never requested again. So I think that they must have seen, they must have been worried about erosion or something and then was like, oh, never mind. I wonder where they're going to move it. I don't know. Like you're on an island, maybe just a little more inland or something. I don't know. Because, you know, the beach is right here. It appears, yeah, well, from this perspective, moving out. It is, I mean, yeah, the water's right there. Yeah, I don't know. But, and if you look at it today, then, you know, that erosion never came to be, so they weren't, it's a good thing that it wasn't approved because it would have been for nothing.

21:30 In 1920, a three -ton Mercury float was installed in place of the chariot that was there already for our first -order lens, so. For anyone that wants to hear more about that, go to our Mercury Floats episode. That wasn't that long ago, right? No. Okay. Maybe a month. That was a more recent one. Captain Charles Swan retired after his assistant keeper of over a decade had a heart attack while relieving him in the lantern room and died. Damn. I know. And they said that he had been having chest pains while climbing the lighthouse for the past year and was just like, he just stopped, would stop halfway up to rest. And then go the rest of the way. Like, oh, I wanted to avoid having the heart pains. His heart was trying to tell him for so long. That's why you can't tough it out. Gotta get help. But these men were like hardcore. You gotta tough it out sometimes.

22:24 Not when you have chest, never when you have heart pains. Never when you have heart pains that make you stop. Noted. So that was the end of our first head keeper. And there was only two after this. There was two. I mean, obviously, there's three keepers' houses. So there's a first assistant and a second assistant keeper. And there was a lot higher of a turnover in those than the head keepers, of which there was only three, like I said. So 1958, Oak Island Lighthouse was lit, which was really powerful. And also, I think it looks like a cigarette. Do you have a photo? I'd love to see it. No. What? I know I don't. I don't know. I think... My realization is that I really like lighthouses that are dynamic and or, you know, like conical. Like, I like it when they're tapered edges. When they're straight up and down, I don't like them. Yeah. Looks like a cigarette. Oak Island Lighthouses. Yeah, you're right. It's a cylinder. And it's got black top, white middle, and then tan, bare gray, tan base, all of equal length. So it looks a lot like a cigarette. Yeah. Like a lit cigarette. Not to...

23:37 I mean... Obviously there's beauty in every lighthouse, but it's... Every lighthouse is beautiful. Every lighthouse is beautiful. Except for some. Yeah, but I can have my preferences. I mean, some people really don't like skeleton towers. Oh, really? Yeah. I like them. I do too. Some people really don't like integral towers. I disagree with that. You can disagree, but it's what some people feel. Am I telling you that they're wrong or right? Is this therapy? This is uncomfortable. So anyway, the building of Oak Island meant that Cape Fear was kind of unnecessary because it was less powerful and everything. And on top of that, they felt that the tower, even being up, would confuse mariners during the daytime. So you know what they did? They made it into a Christmas tree?

24:29 They blew it up with dynamite. I love that that's a thing that we've done throughout history. It's just like, let's just bring it to the ground. You know, I don't know what else to do other than use explosives. Yeah, I mean, it's the best way to get it down. Just leaves a pile of rubble. I guess. Or twisted metal. Did they destroy the lantern, you think? No. So I'll talk about that in just a second. So I pulled up some pictures of its destruction, which they have a pretty cool picture of it going down. Not that we like it, but it is a cool picture. Yeah. The foundation nowadays is still visible on site and the generator house and the three keepers houses are still there as well. Cool. So here's a picture of the foundation. You can see where the central column used to be and then each of its connecting legs.

25:19 Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's a bummer. Is it in the middle of a roundabout? It appears that it's a roundabout. Or it's just like where you park to see it or something. I don't know. I don't think you're going to go see it. What? You wouldn't go see that? It appears to be a roundabout. They do have a sign like it's something you see. So it's history. Well, yeah. We've seen something like this before. Yes. Where a foundation is still there. And it's like a shrine. Somehow, yeah, it's turned into visitors. Well, I mean, yeah. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Put brick around it. No, it's nice. In 2017, the generator house was a snack shop called Mike's Bites. I don't know what happened to it after that or what it was before that, but just in 2017 at least. And until 2022, the Keeper's houses were rental properties known as Captain Charlie's Station for the first Keeper. Cool. and are in excellent shape and they were put on the market in 2022 as a family compound and i think that they're still available here's from the rental properties uh what's the website what's the cost you have to inquire so you can't afford it okay many millions of dollars you know what they say when you have to inquire you can't afford it exactly they say yeah well that's actually not true for a lot of wedding stuff so put that out of your head i have to inquire a lot well um But it's really nice. We

26:50 got some greenery. A family compound is such a flex. I know. It sounds like such a cool thing. I know. And you know those little houses that we were discussing earlier are still there. Yeah. It must be something. Part of the compound. Is there a Zillow listing? I don't know. Probably not. You have to inquire. You have to inquire. Yeah, it was Intracoastal Realty something company. I don't know. But yeah, you guys can look it up. It's got what looks like private beach access. Right out the front door. A little pathway, you know. Whoever buys it, let us come visit. Yeah, actually you owe us for putting this out there. Well, finder's fee. Finder's fee. Oh, man. So yeah, it's pretty nice and still kicking. Those are beautiful homes. It looks like a great area.

27:40 So you asked about the Fresnel Lens and what happened to that in 2009. The old Baldy Foundation. which I'll definitely cover that when we get to Bald Head Lighthouse, purchased the remnants of the Cape Fear Fresnel lens, which was set up outside an antique dealer in Wilmington, North Carolina. So what happened was the contractor that demolished the lighthouse had the good sense to save the lens, right? Which, by the way, would be an insane amount of work to remove it. Remember, you have to take it all apart. Every prism. And I'll show you a picture. They had this lens at an exhibition or whatever, exposition in 1901.

28:26 So they had a picture of it there. So I'll show you how massive it, like if you think about it. Anyway, it's crazy. But he had the good sense to take it apart and sold it to the antique shop owner in 1968. Same guy. Still there. Crazy. Oh, I have a picture. of what it looked like outside of the antique shop so you'd have to know your stuff to realize that this was a fresnel lens frame looks like the eye of sauron yes that's i was like what does this remind me of the lord of the rings that's hilarious the lord of the rings like evil eye in the sky i couldn't think of it yeah because there's no top like obviously it was a fresnel and so like it's missing some of its framework but It was outside, just in the elements for all that time. I'm surprised it's not made of brass. I thought all, I don't know why I thought that, but I thought all those materials, I mean, cast iron we've seen, but.

29:24 Maybe the parts that were brass are gone. I don't know. Because remember how many, you know, how many frames. So all the glass is gone. Yes. And all the, yeah, probably all the brass that was framed around. The prisms he separated and sold to customers over time and at various auctions and sales. They're in people's houses. Exactly. Meaning the prisons are spread all over North Carolina and beyond. Like at this point, who knows where they are? I'm sure a lot of them are like at the dump. If you have like grandma's estate sale and you're like, what is this hunk of glass? You throw it in the trash. Yeah, like a hundred pound hunk of glass. Yeah, it just looks like a hunk of glass. Yeah, grandma's always holding on to shit. Yeah. You would never know that you had something special. That was the lighthouse. Like, how could you do this? So now that they have the complete framework, the foundation, they have gone to work trying to find all approximately 1 ,000 prisms that made up this lens. And so far they have collected around a third. So that's significant. And that includes seven bullseyes.

30:29 Wow. Yeah. Pretty good. We're making some excellent headway. That's cool. And they mentioned in... you know, the articles that they've done that it's pretty much a pipe dream to expect to ever find the whole thing. But it's kind of fun to be like putting it back together. Don't you wonder where they're at? Well, they said that some have been used as paperweights. Some have just been found like in storage or under beds. Like one of them was just under somebody's bed. And one bullseye was used as a coffee table and had burned a hole in their carpet. That's awesome. Like what a way to learn that you have something that's... Really powerful. That's such a cool discovery. Yeah. I know what that is. And I wonder, yeah, if you get approached or if you just like put it out there. I don't know. Rambo's always had this huge ass coffee table. It's heavy. And for some reason it burned the ground. What? What?

31:21 So they're planning on building an exhibit near Old Bali to house the lens whenever they get more pieces. Very cool. Yeah, hopefully before like they get too much further. I kind of want to see it. As it is right now. I wish they could put it together and then the pieces that they don't have make those like black glass or something. Yeah, like some way to mark what it should look like. But here I have a picture of it at the exhibition. That's crazy. And at the top you can see every single one of those little prisms. Just so crazy. And the contractor sold all those? Sold the whole thing. In its entirety, yeah, to the antique shop. And then the antique shop owner were selling, like, pieces off at a time.

32:03 I mean, I get it. Yeah, no, you can't blame him, really. It's just, like, if it's not special to you, it's not special to you. That's such a shame. I know, but it's pretty cool. And I'm glad this picture from the exhibition is, like, showing what it looks like. And you can see there's a tiny replica of a skeleton lighthouse in front of it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. What a time. It is kind of funny looking at this picture, too. They have things just like set up here and there, just stuff. Like, take a look at what we've come up with over the past year. And people would just get together and just take a look. This is when engineering was really cool. Yeah. It was just like, what can you come up with? Now it's like, we draw on computers. I was thinking about that today during the model review, like that we just, we have scans of an entire refinery. Like. It just blew my mind. Every inch. Just... Hundreds of scans. Between pipes? How? I don't get it.

33:00 It's crazy. Yeah. How can you scroll through miles and miles of pipe and just have it all there in 3D version? Yeah. I mean, I did like a... They have some incredible technology now for scanning 3D. I know we're a little off topic, but... I got paid to go to Colorado and I used a camera. So not even a scanner. Yeah. Just a 360 camera and a tripod and my phone for two days, two and a half days to map out every inch inside and outside the roof, everything on this facility. I can't say more about it. And it all goes together in one big computer model. So they sent me to go and then everyone who ever works in that project knows what it looks like. Yeah.

33:47 They can like fly through every square inch of that place. And that's, you know, there's more advanced scanners and whatnot. Yeah. Yeah. But, but still crazy. That's like all it takes. It's so crazy. Yeah. And just have that forever until somebody throws it away. Like they're going to throw away every single one of these pieces of glass. It would be nice to have seen it when it was brand new, like fresh out of the system and set up. Yeah. But it was beautiful. So hopefully we'll get to see it again one day, refurbished and. Set up in this exhibit. So we saw a first order lens in KitKad. Is that one of the only ones on display? Are there many? I think there are not many, but I don't think it's... It's not common. Yeah, it's not common, but it's also not super rare, I think. That one had a little bit of damage, if I remember right. Yeah. I think the goal for a lot of maritime museums is to have something like a First Order Fresnel lens.

34:45 So if you go to a maritime museum, it's likely that they'll have something. Yeah. Even if it's just like a piece or something. I think it was Gay Headlight. Is that where the museum? In Martha's Vineyard. Yeah. It was fantastic. Worth the walk. But I remember, I was like, oh my gosh. They built three stories of a building. Like as a balcony around this thing. It makes sense. I mean, it's really special. And it's huge. It's crazy. There's no other way to see it. And that's what I have for the episode. Nice. A little bit of frying pan, a little bit of light shift, a little bit of lighthouse. I really enjoyed the frying pan. I would like to see it. I'm glad to know it now because I was... Oh, I didn't include this picture. There was one picture of frying pan next to another light ship that said hens and chickens on the side. What is the hens and chickens light ship? I've got to know. And you don't, you didn't look. I don't. Cause I was just going to mention like, this is what happens is I'm like frying pan. We'll have to leave that for a future. Yeah. I'm going to leave.

35:53 I'm not buoy. Yeah. Tie it in. Tie it down. Chickens. That's so funny. That's all. Thank you for listening to me talk about this one. It was actually fun because it's like low key, not a ton of information, but unique history. It's a good story. It's a cool lighthouse. Good history. The buoy was nice. I wanted to say thanks to our listeners on YouTube, which I'm learning. They're not usually the same listeners as the podcast to YouTube watchers, but thanks. Last time I asked for people to go follow us and we had quite a spike. Oh, did we? Yeah. I mean, biggest ever. That's great. Like I said, we usually don't ask for stuff like that.

36:38 I don't want to be annoying, but that was nice, so thanks. Very good. And what was I going to say? Oh, man, I had something else to say. Do we have a listener right now? No, it wasn't listener related. I was going to say something else, and then you started talking about the YouTube, so now I can't remember. Sorry. We got a YouTube comment. That we're like fun with flags. Fun with flags, which is, I looked it up. I didn't know what they were referring to. It was a show. Not How I Met Your Mother. Big Bang Theory. Oh, yes. Big Bang Theory, Sheldon. Sheldon and Amy. He has a podcast he starts talking about flags.

37:20 I know. I couldn't tell if it was an insult or not. I don't know. That we're like a. Social recluse trying to talk about something that most people don't find interesting. Right. A couple of engineers get together. Dang it. Well, I took it as a compliment because I smiled when I was watching the skit. All right. That's good. Yeah. I mean, we're kind of that. We're fun with flags. Fun with flags. Fun with lighthouses. Yep. So what else? That's it. Check out our Instagram. Oh, I'm really behind on the Instagram. I'm pretty sure like I haven't posted anything for the past four episodes or something. I don't know what's, I don't know why. What are you doing? It'll be okay. I don't know. Just make a couple posts and catch everybody up. Yeah. I'll just, yeah.

38:09 Yeah. See, but at this point, yeah. Yeah. This will be episode number five. This is episode 79. 78. 78. We get to 100, we're going to do something special. We're not going to do that until next year. That's fine. Okay. And you can check out our website, thelighthouselowdown .com. Leave us a review on there. I'm trying to reach you, but your car's extended warranty. Excuse me. I'm doing our outro. You know what? That's it. Thank you for listening to The Lighthouse. The Lighthouse Struggle Bus. Fun with Lighthouse.