Bakers Island 7/23/2015

It's very summertime hot, even on Bakers Island.  We love it, spending more and more time on the ocean in our Boston Whaler, though not swimming from our rocky shores.

We learn something new every day.  Did you know that the precursor to the US Coast Guard was the Massachusetts Humane Society, founded in 1786 to rescue mariners?  The first rescue surfboat station was built in Cohasset, Massachusetts.

An exciting discovery for Greg was when he first found internet reference to a fog bell at Bakers Island Light Station.  Then he found the location of the former bell tower on the rocks below the presently automated fog horn.  Now we have to find out what happened to Bakers' bell.

Another interesting clarification about that white tower standing at the head of Manchester harbor.  We were correct in telling visitors that the structure is not a lighthouse, but little did we know that it is not a modern addition to the architecture of the shore.  It used to be grey and stood as a submarine lookout tower in WWII.

The same visitor who told us about the sub lookout tower in Manchester also told us that the now dismantled tower at the end of Navy Road in Small Point, Maine was not just a triangulation point for planes to practice bombing.  It too was a submarine lookout tower in WWII. 

Last Friday we had the pleasure of meeting two people whose father was a Coast Guard Keeper on Bakers in 1950.  She had a few pictures of her parents,  one, of her parents standing at a certain angle next to the Assistant Keepers house.  We repeated the 1950 photograph with the brother and sister standing in the same spot in 2015.

Joy came for us when two of our grandchildren arrived for last weekend to stay at the light station with us.  Our four-year old granddaughter was heard to say, "This is the best house ever."  She has visited us in six houses in her brief life.  Then, our seven-year-old grandson woke up Sunday morning and said, "I love my room!  I see the lighthouse, the heli pad and the ocean."

We are looking forward to our niece coming out as she did at Seguin, to help out and to enjoy.  Also looking toward National Park service teenage volunteers to help us clear brush.  It is hoped that goats will clear some of the poison ivy for us next year if we clear an area for them.  Greg and I just finished repainting the lantern house so it will match in brightness to our newly refinished light tower.

We tell our visitors what a quiet island this is with the limited elecetric power everyone has, solar and propane only.  Then I hear a loud argument of old men right outside my window.  But it's only 6 am.  It's just old seagulls who sound just like angry old men when there are no other sounds except the wind.

We can see the Boston skyline from our yard, so close yet so far.  A big Coast Guard boat is going by as we get ready to meet visitors from the Essex heritage tour boat.  The busy harbor is a constant source of interest and our guests are a constant source of fun.

Bakers Island, Salem Harbor, July 15,2015

We have been on Bakers Island for two months now.  Bright sun this morning when Greg raised the lighthouse flag.  Then a bank of fog so thick, we couldn't even see the shore.  The warning fog horn sounded every 30 seconds.  Of course many people weren't even out of bed yet.  By 9am bright sun shone on Bakers again.  Tour boats and fishing boats poured through the channel, formerly called the Misery Shoals by merchants and mariners during the Golden Age of Sail in Salem, 

1790's-early 1800's.

Norseman's Head of Bakers Island

We have hosted several hundred visitors since the Essex Heritage tour boat, Naumkeag,  meaning  "the fishing place," started 5-day a week service.  I think I can speak for the EH tour guides who accompany each boat trip, that we learn something new every trip, either from a visitor who is a sailor, fisherman or woman, retired Coast Guard, or a well-read historian.  And from well-read kids.  We have great fun when kids get off the boat thrilled, amazed when they see the light tower and then tell us everything they know about the sea.  We even met two boys whose grandparents live in Five Islands, Georgetown, Maine, our old stomping grounds.

Sea Gulls still protecting their fledglings.

The restoration of the Lighthouse is complete.  Everyone, either from the boat or our Bakers neighbors, says it looks magnificent.  Three weeks of work and the yellow lichen is transformed to a glowing white.  The lantern house is shiny black from catwalk to dome.  New windows.  And an exciting find, the old iron railing up the inside stairs used to be on the right side, not the wall side where the Coast Guard cable is.  Why do the stairs go clockwise up and counter clock-wise down?  May have to do with sword fight defenses of the middle-ages, according to a visiting historian.  Our lighthouse is only 200 years old.

Finished Tower

View from Keeper's House skylight

Trails are being reopened from height-of-land to the beach.  Poison ivy and sumac stand in the way, but our Seguin Island experiences and Maine Agricultural Extension recommendations make a good starting place for this project.  We anticipate teen age volunteers from the local area to be part of the team.  Greg has already uncovered an old Coast Guard stone wall on the beach which used to lead to their, now defunct, boat house.

View from our front door

We love this place, day and night, sun or fog or rain.  Looking forward to three more grandchildren visiting us this weekend.  I will read them, "My Dad Fixed the Lighthouse" by Marty Nally, our mason.  Hopefully those little tykes will want to swim in this cold, cold ocean...

We are now one week into the Essex Heritage boat trips to Bakers Island Light Station.  After seventy years without public access, Essex Heritage tour guides welcome visitors to Bakers Island who come from Salem on the 18-passenger Naumkeag.

Every day we are learning how important Salem Harbor was to American merchants after the lifting of the British-imposed Navigation Acts.  After 1776, Salem merchants could trade all over the world.  Did you know that Salem was named after Jerusalem, "City of Peace?" 

Independence Day was gala out here on Bakers.  Our daughter and two granddaughters spent the weekend with us in the Keepers House.  Marty Nally, the mason restoring the outside of the lighthouse, and his family, stayed in the Assistant Keepers house.

At least 50-60 guests came over on the three-times-a-day Naumkeag.  Everyone either heard our granddaughter sing "It's a Grand Old Flag" or see that she was the only brave one to wear a bathing suit into the cold, cold North Shore waters that surround us.  Hard shell lobsters eaten in the evening, al fresco, had to be opened with tools out of the workshop:  hammer, pliers and wrench.  And then the fireworks!  Up and down the whole North Shore, seen from our lawn.


Another July 4th accomplishment was to have the flag once again flying from the lighthouse and to uncover the Coast Guard helicopter pad.  With the help of the masons, the 10 foot long lanyard, 50 feet high, was restrung and the 8X10 flag was unfurled for all to see on July 4th.  We uncovered the bricks of the heli pad, buried under 4-6 inches of sod, and repainted "striping safety yellow" to restore a piece of 1960's Coast Guard history.

The restoration of the outside of the lighthouse is in the final phase of three coats of special paint.  It has been an amazing process, removing yellow lichen and revealing a white tower.  When visitors look inside at the 48 narrow stairs leading to the lantern room, most everyone remarks about how hard life must have been for light keepers of old, carrying whale "lard" or kerosene up, maintaining the light every night, cleaning up after burning dirty fuels, and making do with whatever could be raised or grown for food.  How different it is for us.  

With a beautiful Fourth of July just past, we are ready to greet many happy visitors on the Essex Heritage Naumkeag and for the rest of our six grandchildren to experience Bakers Island Light Station.  In the meantime, picture Greg and Mary tooling around Salem Harbor in our Boston Whaler.