Monday, July 13

Another nice day. I put on shorts and headed to the cove. My plan was to get the weed eater I left there and clean up the trail to the lighthouse. Instead I ended up reading a book I got from the library while sitting in the chair near the boathouse.

Brenda was busy with painting the trim in the bedroom. She called me on the radio to say she got a phone call from Connie at the FOSI office. Connie said Ethan was bringing some visitors out and among them was a former assistant keeper of the light. Connie asked if we could meet them on the beach and assist with getting them ashore.

A little while later Ethan arrived with Mr. Sterling, his son Allen and cousin Bruce. We got them ashore safely although a little wet. There was a surge in the cove and the tide was coming in. This resulted in two foot waves crashing on the beach which created a challenge in staying dry.

Once ashore we got to the lighthouse and Mr. Sterling shared his remembrances. He was here in the 1936. Mr. Sterling is now 92 and lives with his son in Savannah, Georgia.

Following is an article from the Lighthouse Digest Magazine (April 2008 edition)

The Last of His Kind

Harlan E. Sterling is shown here on a recent visit to the Georgia’s Tybee Island Lighthouse. He was not your normal tourist on his visit to the lighthouse, because he actually lived a large portion of his life servicing aids to navigation, including lighthouses. And he is one of the last surviving employees of the United States Lighthouse Service. After growing up on Peaks Island in Casco Bay, Maine, he joined the United States Lighthouse Service in January 1934 when he was seventeen years old. He served as crewmember on the lighthouse tender Hibiscus out of Portland, Maine. He recalls on his first day of duty he arrived on board the ship with the clothes on his back and a small duffle bag of personal items. He was immediately handed a bucket and a large cake of yellow soap for washing paint as well as his clothes. He recalls servicing many lighthouses and buoys from New Hampshire all the way up the Maine coast to the St. Croix River Lighthouse and Whitlock’s Mill Lighthouse. In 1936 he was sent to Maine’s Seguin Island Lighthouse for two months of temporary duty as lighthouse keeper due to the illness of another keeper. At that time Millard H. Urquhart was the keeper at Seguin. After duty at Seguin Island Lighthouse he returned to duty on board the Hibiscus and remained a crewmember until 1939 when the Lighthouse Service was merged into the Coast Guard. At that time he was transferred to a lighthouse and buoy tender in Puerto Rico and over the years he served on a number of other Coast Guard vessels including the Spruce, Cowslip, Nettle and Violet. He retired from the Coast Guard in 1965 as a CWO4, and now resides with his son and daughter in law in Savannah, Georgia. He truly is the last of his kind.

We hosted a few other visitors during the day.

Later in the afternoon Brenda returned to trimming out the bedroom and I took the lawn mower to the South trail. Last time I cut this trail it was with the weed eater. This time I used the push mower. This meant carrying it over the numerous rocks, starting and stopping numerous times and generally humping it around. I got about two thirds of the way and left the mower where I stopped. Tomorrow I’ll finish.

It is 2030 now and we can see two storms off in the distance. One has nimbostratus clouds and the other cumulonimbus or a thunderhead. Just heard on the TV that there is a severe thunderstorm warning in the Augusta area.