The Lightkeeper's Blog

The storm windows are down and the first oil delivery of the season came today. I am picking up a week’s worth of news and a few images.

On Wednesday, with a good amount of warning, a storm bringing extreme winds came in and pushed the Cottage around for about 10 hours. School was called off as power cut out and as I write, I am still without a wired Internet connection. The web cams will be out until next Thursday when I get a tech in here to get me back online.

Wednesday turned to Thursday turned to Friday. There was a small amount of rock to clear off the pavement on the ocean side; I was able to do it with only a push broom. The bigger potential headache is that the wind broke the flagpole line on the Tower. I will be working on that the next quiet day. A splice added to my brand new line to gain a little length split at one of the clips for the flag. It was an impressive wind. The weather station gauge indicated an average speed of 43 mph for the event.

The generator ran great from the first pull though I had to travel a ways to get the needed gas for it. My first trip took me to Norwell where a crack team at Joseph’s was cranking out gallon after gallon in a gale. My second trip took me all the way to Hingham. No crack team there; it was pump your own and wind your way home through a lot of downed trees, wires, and orange cones. The lights and fridge and heat were kept on all the way to Saturday morning.

Driving off on Wednesday to get that second dose of gasoline I got stopped at the neck of the Point by the tide. 8 to 10 inches of water and sand blocked the road and the current car rides too low to risk it. I have tried in the past with a van that rode higher and later, regretted it. This time I backed it up and turned it around to go out later. It was in that turn that I got out to get this picture.

I had seen this photo many times. It is a constant during every storm. I had never taken it before. When I had finished a news crew approached and I did a short interview. I never did see what they aired but I hope it wasn’t too hokey.

With school called off on Friday I took a chunk of the morning to begin bringing in the boardwalk. It stacks each winter in the yard and I like to think of bringing it in as rolling up a rug. One piece had been moved by one of the tides. I hauled that into the yard first, walking it across until I could make a home for it. The others got put piece by piece on a two wheeler and, using the boardwalk as my ramp, rolled into their own piles in the yard.

Saturday was too windy to bring in the last dozen pieces. I left that to Sunday and got this cool moment.

I was approached as I began by a woman taking photographs. She asked what was public and what was private. I explained what she could do and she started prowling around. I rolled several pieces into the yard and noticed several linemen crews pulling in to the parking lot. They got out of their trucks and made their way toward the water on the harbor side. I decided to thank them for getting us back on the grid and off the generator. They were humble as they received my thanks.

I continued to wheel in the panels and I overheard one tell my prowling Florida photographer that they were a crew from New Brunswick. I headed in to the house to get the camera and came back with these too. The entire spread of the East Coast from Florida to Canada in two shots.

It was a great moment to capture. I think you can see from the looks on the faces that this group was glad to have met.

The sky after a storm takes on an improved quality. There is something different about it. On Sunday it looked like this.

This last is from this morning. The colors can grab you by the throat. We had to pull over at the Yacht Club and take our best shots.