Coming to America...Today

The Cubans were landing as I came along the beach and I got to be the first American to welcome them to these shores.

The time was 7:36 a.m. I’d just met Tony, the new Park Manager, on his first day at Fort Zachary Taylor. I came around the bathhouse at the concession stand and the sun had just cracked above the horizon. Good mood. Wonderful new day.

And, because I was happy, I was playing my music on my iPhone. Neil Diamond was singing. And I was singing along:

“Everywhere around the world

They’re coming to America.

They’re coming to America.

Got a dream to take them there

They’re coming to America

Every time that flag’s unfurled

They’re coming to America.

Got a dream to take them there

They’re coming to America

Got a dream they’ve come to share

They’re coming to America

Today. Today. Today. Today. Today.

And there they were. Fifteen young Cubans had just leaped from their homemade boat into the surf off our swimming beach, under the coconut palms. They were almost delirious with excitement.  

They hugged each other and screamed “Libre. Libre” to me as I got on my walkie-talkie to call the administration. “I have 15 Cubans who just landed on our beach. I’m heading toward them,” I told Jayne, the assistant park manager.

I walked over to the Cubans and shook their hands, smiling and saying, “Welcome to America.” They were cold and wet for the morning temperature was only 63. But they all looked healthy. And they were VERY happy. I so wished I had either of my old buddies, Jose Azel or Celia McTague Pomerantz with me to help me communicate. Jose was born in Cuba and Celia has a Puerto Rican heart of gold.

The park staff arrived by then and we all stood around, handing out our supply of shop towels. Those are the beach towels we store after visitors leave them on the beach at the end of their day.

One of the Cubans opened his wallet and began handing me 10, 20 and 50 peso bills. He pointed to the pictures on the different denominations and said, “Jose Marti” and “Maximo Gomez” and “Antonio Maceo” and “Fidel Castro” on the 20 peso bill. I passed the money back but he pushed it on me again. Then they began to tear the bills into little pieces, indicating they were worthless.

The Key West Police soon were on the scene and they were exceedingly kind to the young people. They asked in Spanish if they were hurt, hungry or sick. But no one was. I learned later, however, three of the girls were taken to hospital because they had diesel fuel spilled on their bodies.

One young girl, maybe 18 or 19, carried a wooden bowl. I asked to look inside and she removed the lid. Inside were dry beans and beads. A Key West policeman told me it was probably Santeria, the Haitian-Cuban-West African animist religion.

The police suggested they move over to the bathhouse so they’d be out of the wind so this is where I left them.

I spent the rest of my shift explaining the latest landing to our park visitors.  The boat was better built than last week’s version, which was basically Styrofoam with a couple of areas of sheet metal. It also had a diesel engine inside, along with jugs of fuel and water. We found hypodermic needles and bags of saline solution in addition to Dramamine and some other anti-nausea pills aboard the boat.  All the visitors were in awe that these young people risked all to make the 90-mile voyage to our version of freedom.

All in all, this was a very good day to be at the park.

Refugees gleefully push Cuban pesos on me because I welcomed them ashore.

Meeting with Don, the Parolee

Two schooners, one built of wood (foreground), the other of steel, duel for position in the channel off Key West.

I want to tell you the best part of my volunteer job. It’s interacting with the visitors. This morning was a perfect example. I met Don, a 64-year-old guy who is on parole. We didn’t get into his crime or misdemeanor. But I got just about every other aspect of his life.

Don was waiting at the park for his bank to open at 9 a.m. He comes to the park each day, he told me, because it’s a great place to hang out. He meets with Dot, his parole office once a week and she is a peach, he said. He’s known her for 34 years. I don’t know if that’s because Don is a pain in the ass felon who keeps getting into trouble. Or maybe he knew Dot in another life, somehow. Anyway, Dot basically wants to know what he’s up to, what he’s been doing, and what his plans are for the coming week.

Now, let’s go back to the bank. He said he went to the ATM machine last night to get $20 cash and the machine rejected his request. It said he had insufficient funds in his account. But that can’t be, Don said. He had $220 in there the day before. I said it sounds like the bank auto-paid a bill that came due.

And that started a new train of thought. Don told me he is on Social Security disability and gets $664 a month from the government. His room in Key West costs his $600 a month. I said that doesn’t leave much for food and he told me the state comes through with $134.23 for Food Stamps. Still sounded kind of thin to me.

But I noticed he had one earpiece plugged into his ear and the other end of it was plugged into an iPhone. “That ain’t cheap,” I told him…and he agreed. That costs him another $82.25 a month.  I don’t see how it all adds up, I told him.

Anyway, he couldn’t explain the gap between income and outgo, so I decided to drop the subject. 

But Don was still my most interesting character of the morning. And he was a lot more interesting to talk to than my usual conversation with mourning doves and palm sparrows who greet me on the picnic tables and who absolutely refuse to move while I reach around them to pick up cigarette butts with my Pik-A-Stik.

I’m in awe, by the way, at the endless supply of cigarette butts that accumulate each day in the park. Siri tells me that 23 per cent of Americans still smoke. Back in 1950, she tells me, 50 per cent of the population smoked. If I’d been picking up butts back then, I’d be hip deep in them!

We've Gone To Extremes Again

I’m not an extremist – not in any real sense of that word. But there is something in my soul that demands that I go to the extreme corners of our country - and even the earth. Don’t know why. But I just have this insatiable craving to go to the extreme northwest, the extreme northeast, etc.

We’ve accomplished this goal by making it to Anchor Point in Alaska – as far to the northwest in North America as it is possible to reach without leaving the roads. And we have touched the most easterly point in North America by reaching freezing Cape Spear in Newfoundland. And that doesn't even count the high Himalaya of Bhutan, or the sweltering jungles of Borneo or the dry desert of Namibia.

Today, we parked our home at the most extreme southeast corner of the country. We made it to Fort Zachary Taylor State Park in Key West, Florida. This feat involved a sensuous drive along a glittering pearl and diamond necklace of keys for more than 100 miles. The journey took us over a ribbon of highway that allowed us to drive, effectively, across the ocean.

We left Key Largo at the northern end of this highway and wandered southwest on a two-lane road that took us to the jewels of the Florida Keys: Plantation, Matacumbe, Lignumvitae, Hawks, Fat Deer, Boot, Big Pine, Cudjoe, Sugarloaf, Rockland, Boca Chica and, finally, Key West.

These keys are connected by impressive bridges, some running seven miles across the sparkling ocean. The shades of blue and green on this water stretches my ability to describe them. Sapphire, of course, and that gave way to cobalt in the deep blue water holes. Then there is Cerulean, Azure, Aqua, Amethyst, even Robin-egg Blue. The palette is exquisite and the miles slip away easily and painlessly as we catch our breath with the pure pleasure of the ceaseless sea.

We arrived at Fort Zachary Taylor at high noon and were greeted by park rangers and volunteers alike. Because we are a few days early, they had to find a place for us to park until we can slip into our home for the next three months. That was easier said than done. We maneuvered among the palm trees and gumbo limbo trees. It was too close for comfort and I eventually backed out and parked the rig beside a ranger’s house. We plugged in and settled down to our new adventure.

First things first: we unmounted our bicycles from the back of the rig, pumped up the tires and took off to view the park. A high-sided boat was perched at the entrance to our quarters. Another volunteer told me this had arrived a few nights before from Cuba with about 20 refugees. They had filled it with fuel and water, started the 12-cylinder diesel engine and high-tailed it out of Cuba. All the men jumped ashore and immediately stripped off their Cuban Army greens, swapping the clothes for tee-shirts and khaki pants. The army greens were found on the beach later in the night. 

We in the U.S. have this peculiar policy that is exclusive to Cubans. It’s called the wet-foot-dry-foot policy. If the Cubans make it to shore in the U.S., they are given $10,000 and welcomed as refugees. If, on the other hand, the Coast Guard spots their boat and stops them before they can put their foot on American soil, they are handed back to the Cuban government unless they can prove that returning to Cuba will result in their death.

So these characters made it through the net and are winners.

Well, enough of this for the time being. We look forward to an adventurous time in this most southern point in the mainland U.S.

 

The signpost on our beach lets you know how far away we are from Tokyo, Cancun, Paris, Habana, London, and even Miami.

Man Down. Man Down

My time came today. I was climbing to the top of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse at 12:30 p.m. I reached the halfway point and took the walkie-talkie radio from Ranger Kelly. I was carrying a book, along with my water jug and I continued onward. I noticed I was feeling the oppressive heat inside the lighthouse and took more rests than usual. There are 257 steps to the top but there are landings every 31 steps. There’s a window on each landing and I stopped at landing six for a breather.

I pushed on to landing seven where I found I was unusually out of breath. So I stopped again. Now I was sweating profusely. I put my book down on the window sill and took a swig of my water. But still I felt a little light-headed. I thought to myself: just push on one more flight of stairs. You’ll be better when you reach the top because there’ll be more breeze up there.

But then I slid down the wall, every-so-gently, and lay on the floor of the landing.

I remember a man in a blue shirt leaning down looking at me and asking if I was okay. I said I felt a little shaky. He grabbed my radio and transmitted, “Man down. Man down.” Ranger Justin, on the balcony, talked to him on the radio to figure out where the transmission was coming from. 

The man in the blue shirt told Justin we were one floor down from the top and Justin ran down the stairs to get to me.

The man in the blue shirt explained to Justin and me that he was a First Responder from New Jersey, that he had been at the World Trade Tower on Sept. 11, 2001. He said he had my pulse and it was shallow, that my skin was clammy.

Justin went through his procedure for a man down. He asked if I could move and I told him I actually felt a bit better, that I thought I would do even better if I went up one flight of stairs to the top and got fresh air because of the heat in the tower. He brought a cold compress with him and he put that behind my neck. He had already called Jason, the head ranger, who ordered the lighthouse closed, with all climbers below us to be evacuated. Those above us were asked to stay on the balcony. 

I climbed the last flight up to the balcony but I felt pretty shaky when I arrived there. Down I went again. It was a gentle collapse…just rubber legs that could no longer support me. I don’t believe I passed out.  But Justin confirmed I had, in fact, passed out. I do remember hearing Jo’s voice coming over the radio. She was assigned at the base of the tower. “Could I have a status report on Robert,” she said. Justin got on the radio and told her I was down but was speaking to him. He told her he had summoned the EMTs and we could actually hear the sirens as he spoke.

The man in the blue shirt stayed with me and I told him I was honored that he was there with me.

A woman supported my back with her legs on the balcony and held her hand over my eyes so the sun wouldn’t be too bright. Jason arrived, huffing and puffing a bit too much and I apologized to him for causing such a scene. And, minutes later, the first of two EMTs came on the balcony. They took my blood pressure and it was quite low (92/72) and a discussion started with Jason about whether they should use the box stretcher to carry me down. I told everyone I planned to walk down on my own, however. I asked if I could move around the tower so I could get in its shadow from the burning sun. Eager hands helped me to my feet and I walked the few feet to the shade. The woman who had been supporting me and shading my eyes showed me the imprint I had made on her two legs and I apologized. Jason said my color was coming back from the chalk white I was when he arrived on the top.

I told the EMTs that I’m a week away from the third anniversary of my heart attack but I had no sense this was related. I felt my blood sugar might be too low because I hadn’t remembered to take along my mid-morning Trail Mix snack bar today which I always do when I have a late lunch scheduled.

After I lay there for at least 10 minutes, I said I was ready to hike down the tower. One of the EMTs took the lead, with another one right behind me. It’s pretty easy going down and when I left the lighthouse, I was greeted by a smattering of applause.

The EMTs took me to one of three ambulances they had brought to the scene (!) and I climbed in. They placed me on the gurney, took my blood pressure again (115/80), pulse, and blood sugar (157) and then, just to be sure, hooked me up to the EKG monitor and took a look at my heart. The printout was as pretty as they come and they complimented me on what was happening in my heart. The lead technician said it looked a lot better than his. Jo had joined us in the ambulance and the EMTs said they felt I had been overcome by the heat. They offered to transport me to the nearest hospital – an hour away – for further tests but I said I thought that was unnecessary.

So they discharged me. We joined Jason in the Principal Lighthouse-keeper’s Cottage and he said he wanted us to take the rest of the day off. He also said he’d work on getting us a break at 11:30 each morning so I could rehydrate and stop for a morning snack.

A Tale of the Sea

I occasionally have a free hour in my schedule and I visit the Cape Hatteras National Seashore library to vacuum it for interesting stories. This is considered to be my research time. I recently came upon an outstanding book called Diving the Graveyard of the Atlantic by Roderick M. Farb. It’s full of great yarns about the sinking of ships.

The Outer Banks of North Carolina holds the bones of thousands of ships, hence the superior lighthouses that act as a pearl necklace long the coast. What I didn’t realize, however, is the story of German U-boats that ranged along this coast in 1942. While I was an infant of three or four, I remember my dad’s task during the war of being an Air Raid Precaution officer in Inverness, Scotland. His job required him to walk the streets of our neighborhood at night to check there were no chinks of light escaping from the houses. And he, being a stickler for detail, would bang on the door if he found someone who had sloppily left a blanket askew on a window.

But over here, along the Atlantic seaboard, Americans initially were oblivious to this need to block out the light and, it turns out German U-boats took full advantage of this “it can’t happen to us” attitude. They formed wolf packs of subs off the Outer Banks and in the first three months of the war, U-boats attacked and sank 70 U.S. tankers, freighters and other assorted ships. Astonishingly, the U.S. Navy was so ill-prepared for these attacks that it took the U.S. three months to get its act together, snub out the shore lights, the navigation buoys and, yes, even the lighthouses.

In Diving the Graveyard of the Atlantic, Farb tells the story of  U-boat 352 and the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Icarus. When they met, no help came to either of them. The battle was a fight to the finish. Today the loser sits on a sandy bottom, 115 feet deep, 20 miles off Morehead City, North Carolina.

U-boat 352, captained by Kapitanleutenant Hellmut Rathke edged out of St. Nazaire harbor in France on the morning of April 4, 1942. An East Prussian by birth, Rathke was 32 years old and considered a rising star in the U-boat arm of the German navy.

Meanwhile, up in Staten Island, N.Y., the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Icarus, commanded by Lt. Maurice D. Jester, received orders to proceed south to Key West, Florida.  As it cleared the harbor in New York, a passing tug signaled G-O-O-D-L-U-C-K. Icarus signalman flashed back T-H-A-N-K-S-W-E-W-I-L-L-D-O-O-K.

They were destined to meet off the Outer Banks on May 9. Rathke had spent many hours training his raw crew on crash dives and other maneuvers as they slowly crossed the Atlantic. He allowed his crew time to sunbathe on the deck of the sub but he also ran drills to get them in shape on their first expedition to the coast of North America.

When Rathke arrived offshore, he would sit his U-boat on the bottom during the day and then he’d bring the sub to the surface in the dark. He’d allow the radioman to tune in U.S, radio stations that were transmitting jazz music for the entertainment of the crew. He tried several times to take out ships but his torpedoes went wide. He was bombed by a vigilant plane but managed to escape damage.

Finally, late on May 9, he watched a single mast rise above the horizon. Rathke ordered a crash dive and maneuvered toward the sighting. He ordered one and two torpedoes flooded. They were loaded with electric torpedoes of the latest design. He fired in quick succession. Lt. Ernst, the U-boat’s No. 2 officer, adjusted the submarine’s trim but the adjustment was too severe and Rathke lost sight of his target.

Suddenly the U-boat shook from the recoil of a distant explosion. Rathke ordered the U-boat brought up to periscope depth so he could observe the target. He believed it was a small freighter. It was, however, the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Icarus.

What he didn’t know  was that his torpedoes had actually ploughed into the sand close to Icarus and had exploded. Icarus was jarred but was fully operational. She swung around and headed directly for the sound pattern the radioman had identified as U-352. 

The submarine crew cringed as Icarus came overhead. The first depth charge exploded next to U-352’s deck gun. Another went off beside the engine room. Two charges drifted down alongside the conning tower. Icarus trembled under the impact as these depth charges exploded.

Aboard U-352, every gauge exploded and shards of glass flew everywhere. Lt. Ernst was flung into the control panel, crushing his skull. Lights flickered throughout the U-boat and then died.

Both electric motors aboard the sub were wrenched from their mountings and the boat was without power. One motor could run intermittently.

Rathke analyzed his situation. His No. 2 officer was dead. He was limping, without instruments and only a small amount of power in one engine. But he refused to give up the ship. What he didn’t know was that a large amount of sheet metal on the bridge had been blown away and the buoyancy of his vessel was questionable.

The radiomen aboard Icarus tracked the sub and knew he was trying to slip away but Lt. Jester brought Icarus around for a second attack.  U-352 was about to be a dead boat.

Rathke ordered silence and every man stood absolutely still. The only sound was a drip from the No. 1 torpedo tube. When it became a spurt of water, one of the torpedomen cried out. Rathke sent a man forward to demand silence.

No depth charges had fallen in 15 minutes. The Icarus’ engines died away and then returned, ominously strong.

The new round of depth charges knocked U-352 on her side and she settled on the bottom, one of her buoyancy tanks was ruptured.

The first man out of the sub had his right leg blown off by a machine-gunner aboard Icarus. The three-inch gun aboard Icarus was punching out as long and hard as it could go.

As the Germans escaped from their sunken sub, Rathke spotted his machinist who had his leg blown away. He was in a sea of blood. The captain removed his belt and tried to staunch the flow of blood from the severed leg while the hail of gunfire continued around him.

Rathke called for his men to have courage as the hail of bullets continued from Icarus. Helplessly, he watched them being shot to death in the water. Rathke shouted for mercy and for help and his men joined him.

John Bruce, aboard Icarus remembered seeing the men in the water. He screamed, “For God’s sake, don’t shoot them in the water.” But he was derided by his fellow crewmen. One of the men said, “That could have been us.”

The gunners on the stern stopped but the gunners on the bow maintained their firing. Three minutes after U-352 went down, a runner from the bridge went to each gun and ordered a ceasefire.

After one more round of dropping depth charges on the sunken U-boat, the Icarus headed away from the scene. Lt. Jester was unsure of his authority and didn’t know if he had to do anything other than sink submarines.

He sent a message to Norfolk, stating he had 30-40 men in the water and asked if he should pick them up. There was no reply.’

Next he tried Charleston and still there was no reply. The message was received and acknowledged.

After 10 minutes, the radioman asked if Charleston had any message for Icarus. The answer came back: “No.”

The radioman saw that Icarus was pulling farther and farther away from the U-boat and he went up the chain of command asking again if  Icarus should pick up survivors.  After 40 minutes, he asked again. This time, he received a coded message authorizing the pickup of the U-boat crew along with orders to take them into Charleston.

Rathke saw Icarus returning and he gathered his crew around him. He told them: “Remember your duty. Do not tell the enemy anything.”

Rathke asked that his wounded men be taken aboard first. Rathke was the last man out of the water. Fourteen of his crewmen died in the engagement. It was the first U-boat to be sunk by the U.S. in World War II by the U.S. Coast Guard.

When you dive on U-352 today, there's lots to see, even after 72 years.

An Almost-forgotten Past

A female Coast Guard person is "rescued" by the Breeches Buoy at Chicamacomico.

Before the U.S. Coast Guard, we had the U.S. Life Saving Service. These guys lived on the Outer Banks in the 1870s in life saving stations scattered along the shore. Their task was to brave the elements and attempt to rescue the survivors of the 2,200 vessels that ran aground on these shoal waters off the east coast.

Jo and I were assigned to visit one of the lifesaving stations that now are registered as a Historic Place. We visited Chicamacomico (pronounced CHICA-MA-COM-ICO), which, to the Algonquian-speaking peoples means “land of shifting sands”. Those Indians knew whereof they spoke. The sands do nothing but shift.

The Coast Guard from the Hatteras Station had come north to the station to put on a demonstration of how the life-saving team would launch a Breeches Buoy from the land to an object representing a foundering ship.  Their spokesman told us the service back in the 1870s would be tested on a regular basis to be sure they were capable of performing the exercise in five minutes.  

The brawny Coast Guard men and women took around 25 minutes to perform the task of digging a hole in the sand in which they anchored the equipment. They then lined up their brass cannon on a replica of a ship’s mast and fired the cannon. They missed the mast because the wind dropped at the moment of firing and the shot went wide.

We watched as they tied off the rope to the mast, cranked in on a pulley system to make a tight connection to the shore and then sent the breeches buoy out to the “ship” and rescued the youngest and lightest of the Coast Guard women.

There were 29 stations strung out along the Outer Banks of North Carolina. And their record of rescue is pretty impressive. We were told more than 177,000 people’s lives were saved by the crews. The most notable rescue occurred in 1918, toward the end of World War I when the men of the Chicamacomico station rescued 42 of 51 sailors aboard the S.S. Mirlo after she was sunk by a German submarine.

Very few lifesaving stations remain in the U.S. today. So, should you come to the Outer Banks, this is a “must visit” site.

Jo walks toward the life saving station as a Coast Guardsman steps down the ramp.

A Journey to Beat All

Turtle watchers gather around the first of 44 loggerhead turtle nests to produce babies at Cape Hatteras Light.

One little soldier stuck her head up through the sand. The struggle to extricate herself from her sandy den seemed to exhaust her and she perched, head out, looking around for 10 minutes.

Tiny turtle pokes her head through the sand.

There are another 120 to 150 brothers and sisters in the pit. This one little turtle seemed to be the scout. She rested long enough and then made a break for the Atlantic. No muss, no fuss. She headed straight for the pounding sea. In another 10 minutes, another loggerhead popped up and followed his or her sister.

Four had launched themselves the previous night without being seen by any of the rangers and volunteers. All in the dark of night had made their break for the unfathomable ocean, leaving only the imprint of their flippers on the damp sand.

This almost anti-climactic event is but the earliest, faltering steps of a journey that is both astonishing and magical.

The mother loggerhead turtle had clawed her way up the Cape Hatteras beach on May 28 this year. She scooped a hole in the sand and silently deposited her clutch of eggs. Then, just as silently, she heaved her 200 pounds of body weight back down the sand and into the ocean.

She had come home. Between 30 and 33 years ago, she had been a newborn turtle, just like her newest offspring. She had begun a journey on a similar night back in the 1980s. Just as now with the newborns, there was no mother or father to guide and protect her. She was on her own in a predatory world.

Her first enemy on the beach were hundreds of ghost crabs, their eyes on stalks. They seem to have a singular goal: Eat the heads of the newborn loggerheads. To prepare for this event, the crabs build their nests around the loggerhead nest. They run back and forth to the ocean to fill their gills with seawater for they need the saltwater to survive. They’re fast and stealthy. 

When mom made it to the sea back then, her task was simple: get there before the break of dawn, for that is when the birds awaken and begin their morning patrols, seeking fresh crabs and choice morsels of turtle meat.  She had to get into the ocean and swim for her life.

In the ocean, however, lurk even more predators. So, with enemies all around, this little turtle must figure out, on her own, how she will feed herself to produce the energy necessary to make her way through the ocean.

If she is extraordinarily lucky, of course, she will come upon a piece of sargassum weed, a universe of food living within the weed: sea lice, tiny little crabs, and assorted other bugs. The little turtle can eat all of it, including the weed itself. Something in its DNA apparently guides it to make its way south along the Atlantic coast, living off the bounty of the ocean while making its way toward the Sargasso Sea, that piece of Atlantic above the equator where a million square miles of ocean feeds the ocean and the creatures living in the ocean.

The little turtle will linger there for many years, maturing, learning on her own how to survive and prosper.

When she becomes a teenager, but while only halfway to sexual maturity, she begins a journey that is easily the equal of the Pacific Sockeye Salmon. She rides the Gulf Stream north along the Eastern seaboard. She floats along, coming up to the Gulf of Maine, then heads out past Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.

She’s in no great rush. But her journey is epic. She crosses the Atlantic, passing Iceland and then allows the Gulf Stream to take her along the west coast of Scotland. Down she comes, along the coast of England and Wales. She crosses the English Channel and makes it to France and then Spain and Portugal. But her journey is only halfway done by this time. Now she is in her 20s.

When she arrives on the west coast of Africa, she allows the equatorial currents to carry her past the Canary Islands and across the Atlantic. Eventually she come full circle and arrives in the Sargasso Sea. But she’s far from done. She reaches age 30-33. She is sexually mature at last. Now, her primary task is to find a male turtle. This is not a long-lasting relationship. She simply needs to mate.

After the male turtle fertilizes her eggs – and this happens multiples times with multiple males, incidentally, so she carries the eggs with a variety of DNA – she knows in her heart that she must now return to her natal beach. And that’s what brought her on May 28, 2014, to the beach where she was born. Up she came out of the surf, heavy with eggs. After depositing 120-150 eggs just below the lighthouse, she dragged her cumbersome body back down the beach and swam on up the beach another couple of miles before repeating her performance farther up the beach. Her second batch of eggs simply expands the probability of success for her brood. She might even manage a third trip up on the beach before, depleted, she swims off to seek food for the first time since the impregnation began.

And that is what brought us to the beach two nights in a row. When we arrived tonight, we could see an indentation in the sand, a sure sign that the babies had eaten their way out of their shells and were preparing to climb out of the nest and visit their brave new world.

A gaggle of visitors and other rangers gathered with us on the beach. There was great excitement when the first two turtles made the break for freedom. They were guided to the ocean by well-intentioned rangers, shining red flashlights on the sand. The turtles follow the light. The piercing white light of the Cape Hatteras Light can confuse the turtles. So the rangers try to give a helping hand.

Jo and I left them to it after there was an hour lull with no further turtles showing up. We’ll add a note on our Facebook page after we learn the outcome in the morning

Why I Love My Job!

A stunted deer peeks through the grass at Cape Hatteras. They are stunted because they have so much salt in their diet.

One week on the job as a National Park Service Volunteer and I have these thoughts about what I like about my new job:

I’m standing on the balcony at the top of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. There’s a brisk wind blowing (22 knots out of the northwest) and I spy an osprey coasting along, right beside me at eye level. She is carrying a foot-long fish in her claws. We came eye-to-eye for an eternal moment of togetherness.

I’m still at the top of the lighthouse and a young boy approaches. “How,” he asks, “does a person on a boat make use of this lighthouse?” I analyze his age and his eagerness for information and I tell him about how you take a bearing with your compass from your boat to the lighthouse. That gives you a line of position. You are somewhere on that line, I tell him. But you need another line of position to intersect that line. So you look around. You spy Diamond Shoals light structure off to your south. You take another bearing and where that bearing intersects the first line of position determines your exact position in the ocean. He is amazed and I can see it in his eyes he has tucked away this little piece of knowledge.  

Ranger Abby, a bright and vivacious young woman, had been the floater in the lighthouse and she had just come to the top to get a breath of fresh air. She heard this exchange and she expressed amazement that I knew this information. We chatted about my 52 years of sailing experience. Then, just as I was about to transmit the wind data from my anemometer (we record that every half hour) to the museum below, the young boy returned to my side. He had thought about my explanation and he was not done. “I understand how it works in the daytime. But what happens if you are on the ocean and it is dark?” he asks me. Those are the precious jewels that teachers treasure. I told him about the very specific light sequence that shine from the Hatteras Light – a flash every 7.5 seconds. I explained that the Coast Guard has shut down the light on Diamond Shoals so he would have to look for another light source at night. I told him about Bodie Island Light, up the coast. It has a different light sequence that he would be able to identify and then he would take a compass bearing on that. Off he went, to tell his parents.

It simply doesn’t get any better than that.

Our other duties at the top of the lighthouse include explaining how, in 1999, the 198.5-foot-high-brick lighthouse, weighing 5,000 tons, was picked up and moved away from the advancing Atlantic waves. You show where the light used to be and how it was moved 2,900 feet to its current location. People also want to have you shoot their pictures at the top.

 And, not the least important, you keep your eyes open for people who have made it to the top and who are in terror. You can usually identify them because they are pressing their backs to the black metal wall of the lighthouse. Their shoulders take on a concave look and they might be standing with their eyes closed. It becomes your job to help them relax a little.

A young woman, tall and thin, was in this position when I walked around the parapet. Her friends were cajoling her and urging her to not be afraid. But, I thought it best to talk to her while I leaned against the wrought iron railing on the outside of the lighthouse. I knew this is a mind-over-matter experience. Her fear, she told me, is that the lighthouse would fall over. I told her the lighthouse is built so it does not sway. I explained how it is double-walled at the base and stays that way for the first 130 feet up from the ground. Telling her the lighthouse was moved and several people were at the top where she stood while the lighthouse was being moved seemed to calm her. I saw her later in the day, while I was at the Visitor Center Information Desk, and she waved to me. She no longer was concave and she seemed to be having a great time.

It’s not all peaches and cream, of course. I came around the balcony at the top of the lighthouse and came upon a 12 year old boy whom I caught in the act of spitting off the balcony. “What makes you think that is a good idea?” I asked him. “How would you like to be standing on the grass below while I spit off the top so I can hit you in the face?” He hung his head sheepishly and I decided against finding his parents and telling them to get him off the top.

You also get argumentative types who challenge the National Park Service claim that this is the tallest lighthouse in North America. “There’s one in Put In Bay on Lake Erie that’s more than 300 feet high,” one old guy told me. I said I’d look it up – and did. Turns out the 100-foot-high lighthouse sits atop a 200-foot cliff overlooking Lake Erie. Not the same thing, fella!

Jo and I both find the work interesting. But we also find the days to be very long for us. We are used to working 4.5-5 hours a day. These are long, long days when we start at 8:30 a.m. and finish at 5:30 p.m.

Last night, our lead ranger asked if we would like to volunteer for some night climbs of the lighthouse. We decided we would opt for a night climb on the full moon of Aug. 10. But that would add an additional two hours to our work day so we might ask to take off for an afternoon nap that day!

Welcome to Our World

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, photographed from the sand dunes to the east of the light minutes before sunset.

Wow! We are hard at work here on Cape Hatteras – harder than we are used to. Lots of responsibilities for the safety of the visitors to the lighthouse.

Yesterday and today were spent in intensive training. It seemed endless and comprehensive. We were taken to the top of the light – 257 steps inside a brick tube that’s the tallest lighthouse in North America. There are eight landings along the journey – a good place to stop and regain your breath. It’s hot and humid inside the tower. In fact, the heat index is watched carefully by the staff and radio reports are made every half hour regarding relative humidity and the temperature inside the structure. This results in a heat index. If that heat index hits 103 degrees, the lighthouse is closed for safety reasons.

If the wind at the top of the lighthouse gusts above 40 miles an hour, the balcony is closed. You can still climb the lighthouse and you can look out to the south at the top. But you are not permitted to stroll around the balcony. The balcony was closed this afternoon when wind gusts were recorded at 43 miles an hour.

I’m working the base of the lighthouse for an hour and a half after lunch tomorrow. The person at the base has the responsibility for warning of safety procedures for those who are about to climb. It is mostly a series of No this and No that. No carrying children. No bare feet. No chewing gum. No tripods. No backpacks. No pets. No tobacco products. When you get to the top: No spitting. No throwing stuff off. No. No. No.

I, of course, wanted to know if people jump off the top. The answer is Yes! Doesn’t happen often and you are told when the public asks the question, you simply say, “Not since I’ve been here!” Our Ranger/instructor Lori told me, however that a newly married man in 2003 climbed to the top the day after his marriage and threw himself to his death. Not a good start to a marriage.

Jo will be stationed at the top of the tower the same time I’m at the base.  Her job will be to answer question of the climbers. She’ll also take their picture (if they ask); explain how the lighthouse was moved 2,900 feet in 23 days in July, 1999. This astonishing engineering feat was accomplished by excavating under the lighthouse, inserting I-beams, jacking up the beams and the lighthouse and then pushing the entire structure, very slowly, on a track until the lighthouse was moved away from the encroaching ocean to a safer location. The lighthouse keepers’ two cottages also were relocated in the same relationship to the original location.

I’ll start out my day in the museum, where two lighthouse keepers and their families used to live. This is a wooden two-story construction that’s filled with historic material and pictures that range from a captain’s hat from one of the dozens of U-boats that ranged off the East coast at the beginning of World War II.  There are more than 500 sunken ships off the coast on the Outer Banks of North Carolina – truly a graveyard of the Atlantic.

After my 90 minutes at the base of the lighthouse, I’ll go to the Visitor’s Center to answer questions from arriving visitors. It’s a long day and doesn’t feel like retirement to me. We’re here for six weeks and we’ll decide at the end of that time if we are up to such a heavy-duty volunteer commitment.

Now, this was a hurricane

We have been doing our homework, in preparation for our heading for the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

One of the fascinating things I read was a report on the 1899 hurricane that came through the Outer Banks. Back then, there was a weather monitor living with his family on the Outer Banks. No road connected the banks to the mainland. Only sailing vessels could make passage. But this fellow, named  S.L. Dosher, could write a report. I decided to pick it up and drop it into this blog in its entirety so you can read what a hurricane was really like before radio and television.

U.S. Department of Agriculture

Weather Bureau

Office of the Observer

Subject: Hurricane

Station: Hatteras, North Carolina

Date: August 21st, 1899

Chief of the Weather Bureau,

Washington, D.C.

Sir:

I have the honor to make the following report of the severe hurricane which swept over this

section on the 16th, 17th and 18th instantly.

The wind began blowing a gale from the east on the morning of the 16th, varying in velocity from

35 to 50 miles an hour….During the early morning of the 17th the wind increased to a hurricane

and at about 4 a.m. it was blowing at the rate of 70 miles, at 10 a.m. it had increased to 84 miles

and at 1 p.m. it was blowing a velocity of 93 miles with occasional extreme velocities of 120

miles to 140 per hour. The record of wind from about 1 p.m. was lost, but it is estimated that the

wind blew even with greater force from about 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. and it is believed that between

these hours the wind reached a regular velocity of at least 100 miles per hour…

.

At about 7:30 p.m. on the 17th there was a very decided lull in the force of the wind and at 8 p.m.

it had fallen out until only a gentle breeze was blowing. This lull did not last more than half hour,

however, before the wind veered to east and then to south-east and began blowing at a velocity

estimated from 60 to 70 miles per hour which continued until well into the morning of the 18th.

During the morning of the 18th the wind veered to the south and continued to blow a gale, with

heavy rain squalls, all day, decreasing somewhat in the late evening and going into southwest.

This day may be said to be the end of the hurricane, although the weather continued squally on

the 19th , but without any winds of very high velocity.

This hurricane was, without any question, the most severe of any storm that has ever passed over

this section within the memory of any person now living, and there are people here who can

remember back for a period of over 75 years. I have made careful inquiry among the old

inhabitants here, and they all agree, with one accord, that no storm like this has ever visited the

island….

The scene here on the 17th was wild and terrifying in the extreme. By 8 a.m. on that date the

entire island was covered with water blown in from the sound, and by 11 a.m. all the land was

covered to a depth of from 3 to ten feet. The tide swept over the island at a fearful rate carrying

everything movable before it. There were not more than four houses on the island in which the

tide did not rise to a depth of from one to four feet, and at least half of the people had to abandon

their homes and property to the mercy of the wind and tide and seek the safety of their own lives

with those who were fortunate enough to live on higher land.

Language is inadequate to express the conditions which prevailed all day on the 17th. The

howling wind, the rushing and roaring tide and the awful sea which swept over the beach and

thundered like a thousand pieces of artillery made a picture which was at once appalling and

terrible and the like of which Dante’s Inferno could scarcely equal.

The frightened people were grouped sometimes 40 or 50 in one house, and at times one house

would have to be abandoned and they would all have to wade almost beyond their depth in order

to reach another. All day this gale, tide and sea continued with a fury and persistent energy that

knew no abatement, and the strain on the minds of every one was something so frightful and

dejecting that it cannot be expressed.

In many houses families were huddled together in the upper portion of the building with the

water several feet deep in the lower portion, not knowing what minute the house would either be

blown down or swept away by the tide….

Cattle, sheep, hogs and chickens were drowned by hundreds before the very eyes of the owners,

who were powerless to render any assistance on account of the rushing tide. The fright of these

poor animals was terrible to see, and their cries of terror when being surrounded by the water

were pitiful in the extreme.

The damage done to this place by the hurricane is, at this time difficult to estimate,…but is

believed that the total loss to Hatteras alone will amount to from $15,000 to $20,000. The fishing

business here is the principal industry from which is derived the revenue upon which the great

majority live, and it may be said that this industry has for the present time been swept entirely

out of existence….

A great majority of the houses on the island were badly damaged, and 5 or 6 are so badly

wrecked as to be unfit for habitation and that many families are without homes, living wherever

they can best find a home. The Southern Methodist church building was completely

wrecked…All of the bridges and footways over the creeks and small streams were swept

away…. The roadways are piled from three to ten feet high with wreckage….

The telegraph and telephone lines are both down…. It is reported that several vessels are

stranded north of [Big Kinnakeet Life Saving Station]….

A large steamship foundered about one mile off Hatteras beach…and it is thought all on board

were drowned….

The Diamond Shoals Light Ship which was stationed off Hatteras, broke loose from her mooring

on the morning of the 17th and was carried southward by the gale….This vessel will probably

prove a total loss….

The damage to the instruments and property of the Bureau here was considerable….The office

building was flooded with water to the depth of about 18 inches, and the rain beat in at the roof

and windows until the entire building was a mass of water….

I live about a mile from the office building and when I went home at 8 a.m. I had to wade in

water which was about waist deep. I waited until about 10:30 a.m., thinking the storm would lull,

but it did not do so, and at that time I started for the office…. I got about one-third of the

distance and found the water about breast height, when I had to stop in a neighbor’s house and

rest, the strain of pushing through the water and storm having nearly exhausted my strength. I

rested there until about noon when I started again and after going a short distance further I found

the water up to my shoulders…. I had to give it up again and take refuge in another neighbor’s

house where I had to remain until about 8 p.m. when the tide fell so that I could reach the

office….

I started to the office against the advice of those who were better acquainted with the condition

of the roads than I, and continued on my way until I saw that the attempt was rash and fool-hardy

and that I was certain to reach low places where I would be swept off my feet and drowned….

[T]here has never been any such tide as the one here mentioned.

….The rainfall…was as heavy as I have ever seen. It fell in [a] perfect torrent and at times was

so thick and in such blinding sheets that it was impossible to see across a roadway 20 feet wide.

…[E]verything went before the fury of the gale. No lives were lost at Hatteras, although many

narrow escapes occurred, several families being washed out of their homes in the tide and storm.

At Ocracoke and Portsmouth, 16 and 20 miles south of this station the storm is reported about

the same as at Hatteras, with a corresponding damage to property. Reliable details from these

places however, being lacking. A pleasure boat at Ocracoke with a party of men from

Washington, N.C., was lost and a portion of the party were drowned.

There has been no communication with this place by wire or mail since the storm, and it is not

known when there will be. It is therefore requested that so much of this report as may be of

interest to the public be given to the Associated Press for publication in the newspaper.

Very respectfully,

S.L. Dosher

Observer, Weather Bureau

An Exhaltation of Scotsmen

Mar is in Aberdeenshire on the northeast side of Scotland. Blue face is an option.

They came by the hundreds...men in blue faces, beautiful women with tartan and silk and white cotton dresses. And the skirling of the pipes and whirring drummers, swinging their drumsticks around their heads before bringing them down sharply and in syncopation. Brrrrrrrrr-uppppp!

Ah, it was a wondrous thing to step on the field in Dunedin and be enveloped in the sounds of Scotland.

This was the 48th Highland Games held in this town that has deep Scottish roots.

The kids are decked out in lion rampant flags. The Scottie dogs are wearing the kilt! Madness is all about. Many of the male participants are wearing the kilt. Some, tragically, are wearing tartan skirts. But they are not aware of this faux pas, I think. And a few hundred have taken to wearing the utility kilt, a khaki or black number that, I think , they think - mistakenly -  is more masculine.

Before Jo and I left our motorhome and drove the two miles to the gathering, I debated whether or not to wear my grandfather's kilt which he wore when he fought in World War I. But it is awesomely heavy - the kilt is triple-pleated and it takes 24 feet of material to build it. I thought I would melt in the 80-degree heat. So I wore shorts instead.

After making our way around the park and visiting the tents in the Clan Village (about 45 tents that lured you in to find your roots), we stopped by one of the food vans and I ordered my haggis and chips. Jo went for just fish and chips. Even after all these years, she still has not come around to an appreciation of the beauty that is haggis!

We sat with another couple and exchanged stories with them about our and their travels, since they, too, own a motorhome. I tried to explain a few of the more obscure points regarding the wearing of the kilt. Unless someone has issued a memo on decorum in the past 54 years, women NEVER wore the kilt in Scotland. It would be considered totally inappropriate for a woman to wear such a masculine piece of clothing. She would be encouraged to wear a tartan skirt - which would be pleated all around its circumference.

Alas, that distinction seems not to matter in 2014 in Dunedin!

And don't get me started about putting a dog into a kilt. My lord, what are we coming to. This clearly is a marker for the end of civilization as we know it!

It was a first, for me, to watch strapping women lift a 12-foot-high pine tree trunk and toss the caber. The object it to get the top part of the pole to hit the ground and then do a 180 degree spin. Very difficult. Only one of the ladies managed to pull off that feat.

Down the hill a ways, brawny men were throwing a sheaf of hay 79-80 feet into the air to get it over a bar. Astonishing to see these guys hoist that bale that high into the air. Alongside them, other men were throwing an iron weight (112 pounds, I believe) over a bar about 12 or 13 feet above their heads.

We stepped into the cool and air-conditioned building that housed the Scottish Country Dancers. A lone piper played as the young women and girls whirled and danced on the lightest of feet. It was a thing of beauty to watch these young people. As I  absorbed the sound and sight, my neurons fired up and I began recalling parts of an overly long poem, written by Scotland's beloved bard, Robbie Burns. In Tam O'Shanter, Burns tells the story of a drunken Scotsman who spends too much time drinking at the pub while his wife Jean sits at home "gathering her brows like the gathering storm, Nursing her wrath to keep it warm." Anyway, Tom heads off home on his grey mare Meg and he comes to the churchyard at Alloway Kirk. 

The sight he sees is ablaze with light, where a weird hallucinatory dance involving witches and warlocks, open coffins and even the Devil himself is in full swing. 

Tam manages to watch silently until, the dancing witches having cast off most of their clothes, he is beguiled by one particularly comely female witch, Nannie, whose shirt (cutty-sark) is too small for her. He cannot help shouting out in passion:

Weel done, Cutty-sark!

And in an instant all was dark:

 A hell-raising chase ensues and Tam escape with his life, but Nannie pulls the tail off his long-suffering Meg. And, strangely, this imagery came to my mind as I sat and watched and photographed the dancing girls.

Maybe it was the haggis playing games with my mind and body. But I could see Nannie in this picture that I grabbed:

All My Tea from China

These are the two teas we purchased from China.

Two and a half months ago, on a whim, I visited a Chinese website, called Aliexpress.com. This place, it seemed to me, was the Chinese version of Amazon.com. Everything could be bought there. I had a wonderful time browsing through their photo voltaic solar panels, through their electronics like cellphones and tablets, down to hand warmers.

Because both Jo and I are avid tea drinkers, I thought I would try an experiment. I visited their thousands of teas, looking for an ancient tea, called Puerh Tea. We had seen it in large blocks when we were in Sitka, Alaska. It just gets better with age. I found a Puerh Tea that was 20 year old. It was sold in a dainty, embroidered bag for a ridiculously low price of $7.59, with free shipping. While browsing, I came upon an Oolong Tea that seemed to offer promise and, for $5.32; I threw it into the package.

What I had neglected to put into my calculations was Chinese New Year. A few days after I placed my order, 1.6 billion Chinese stopped working for two weeks. Not only did that include the YOYO Tea Store  No.525997, but the China Post and every other worker in the whole country.

As a result, my package took two and a half months to make the journey from mainland China, all the way across the Pacific to the little town of Estero on Florida’s west coast.

But, as luck would have it, the package arrived today, just five days before we are due to head north to our new adventure at Honeymoon Island State Park on Florida’s west coast.

It was with great anticipation that I boiled our water for the first taste test. You are instructed by Chinese tea makers to pour the boiling water over the tea and immediately toss the boiling water out. In this way, you rinse the tea of impurities and harshness. We did as instructed and then re-filled the pot. Ah. Mellow, smooth and gentle. What an amazing tea. And the beauty is you can refill your pot at least five times with boiling water, using the same little compressed capsule of tea leaves over and over.

Now, I know you tea aficionados want more information about Puerh Tea. I have decided to lift the info directly from YOYO Tea Store  No.525997’s website.  I have changed some mis-spellings. But I left the English intact. Enjoy:

What is Puerh Tea?

Puerh is a large leafed tea from the Yunnan province in China and has been famous as a medicinal tea. The earliest records of Puerh tea date back to the Tang Dynasty (618AD-906AD) when it was the favorite tea of the nobleman of this time. Puerh tea over the centuries has been used as a form of currency in China and an important international trading item.

Puerh tea derives its name from the market town of Pu-er, where it was originally processed and sold. It is said that the unique taste of Puerh Tea was developed because it took weeks to transport the tea leaves by horseback to the town to be processed. During this transportation period the tea leaves would begin to ferment in the humidity and release a strong, fragrant aroma, which people found quite pleasant. A special technique of tea fermenting developed and Puerh was thus created.

The secret of making Puerh tea has been closely guarded in China for centuries. The tea leaves are collected from growers of a special broad-leaf tea tree, which are said to be related to ancient prehistoric tea trees. The leaves go through two types of fermentation, which gives this tea its unique characteristics; a mild, but distinctively earthy flavor. Puerh teas are much like fine wines, which become smoother and more balanced with age. Puerh teas are much lower in tannins than other teas due to the special processing method which it undergoes.

Effects of Puerh Tea

1.     Decrease the blood fat, lose weight, decline blood pressure and resist arteriosclerosis.

Dr. Amill Carroby, from a college of Paris, French used Yunnan Puerh Tuo tea to do clinical trial and proved that: Yunnan Puerh Tea has a good effect to reduce content of lipoid and cholesterol? Kunming Medical College of China also observed 55 clinical trials to use Yunnan Puerh Tuo tea to cure the high blood fat diseases and compare them with 31 cases used clofibrate which has a good effect to incline fat. The result shows that the curative effect of Puerh Tea is higher than clofibrate. Long lasting drinkers of Puerh Tea can reduce cholesterol and glycerin fat. So long drinking of Puerh Tea can have the effect of curative the obesity. Drinking of Puerh tea can cause physiological effect in stretching human being's blood vessel, descending blood pressure and slowering the rhythm of the heart, etc. So it has a good curative function to high blood pressure and the brain arteriosclerosis.

2.     Anti-decrepitude.

Catechin of the tea has the effect of anti-decrepitude. Total amount of catechin content of Yunnan big leaf species tea is higher than other tea species. The effect of anti-decrepitude is better than other kinds of tea. At the same time, during the process of Puerh Tea, macromolecular polysaccharide transforms into a great deal of new dissoluble monosaccharide and oligosaccharide. The vitamin C increases doubly, which has an important effect to improve the human being’s immune system and preserve health, strengthen body and prolong longevity.

Brewing Puerh Tea

To make tea must control the water temperature, which greatly affect the aroma and tasty of the tea soup. Puerh Tea requests the boiled water of the 95~100 degrees C.
How much tea can depend on personal taste, generally, 3-5 grams tea properly with 150 milliliters water, and the proportion of tea to water between 1:50-1:30.

For the tea purer aroma, it is necessary to warm tea, i.e., pour out the boiled water immediately for the first time, which can have 1-2 times. The speed must be quick so that the taste of the tea soup can be prevented from influence. While really starting, about a minute the tea soup can be poured into the public cup, and then continue the second. With more times, the time can be prolonged slowly, from 1 minute to a few minutes gradually, which can keep the even density of tea soup.

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