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!