Revisiting Lighthouses
Traditions — if you’re going to keep them — need renewing for each new generation, sometimes sooner. But how often do you want to read another lighthouse story?
So when Thomas Point Lighthouse beckoned University of Maryland journalism student Brad Dress, our summer intern, had to make a case to me to get his story.
There was news, he proclaimed, the first structural reconstructuon in the century and a half this incarnation of the iconic lighthouse has protected mariners from the shoals of Thomas Point.
He’s made a good read out of his voyage and visit, adding human interest to the story of a landmark renewal. If you give him your time, I think your memory will be refreshed, as mine was. Plus, you’ll be in the know.
Thomas Point still lights the way around danger, with its white light reaching 16 nautical miles into the Chesapeake and its red light 11. But lighthouses stand more for sentiment nowadays than for survival. They are obsolete, sentinels of a surpassed technology.
But in their day, that technology, crowned by the optical wonder of the Fresnel lens, was as good as it got.
From the day humans first got to the water, it has drawn us in. It has given us mobility and taken us around the world. Not without exacting its price. Mariners knew from centuries of deadly experience that the dangers of the sea were more than any mortal could imagine. The bottoms of waterways are littered with shipwrecks and bones.
So we gave the gods who ruled the water tempestuous, changeable characters that were quick to wrath and ruin.
The culmination of all those centuries of human ingenuity in face of the forces of the sea led to these 19th century masterpieces.
In mothballing our lighthouses and relegating them to museums, have we let go our awareness of the power of the sea?
That’s a question worth considering just as our Bay and waterways have taken at least five lives. All the more so as this week brings us to the pinnacle of summer on the water, the Fourth of July holiday.
Certainly Chesapeake Bay and our Annapolis capital region are full of knowledgeable mariners, trained and experienced in the ways of the water. I’m not speaking to them, for they know better than I that the water can take any life, at any time.
I’m talking to the rest of us, who think of this great Chesapeake as our playground and imagine escaping to it as lark. Those of us who would never imagine a walk on a pier might drop us to our watery death. That we might never return from a routine shakedown cruise. That our boat taking us on a crabbing expedition could drop out from under us. That our kayak could flip us — despite our strength and competence — into Davy Jones’ locker.
How do we defend ourselves against such fates?
First, by recognizing the power and mutability of the Bay, indeed any body of water. Fog can drop in, wind can blow up, waves can roar, lightning can strike — and all can take our lives.
That essential insecurity demands that we respect the water and go to it carefully, not casually, preparing as best we can with all the tools and knowledge we can gather.
That means assuring the safety of your boat before you trust it to bring you back home.
It means investing in a life jacket that you’ll wear instead of counting on your old, maybe waterlogged, certainly ungainly Mae West. Tie a whistle on it, and wear it.
It means learning the rules of the water and of handling your boat. There’s no better way to begin that education than enrolling in a class — not online — offered separately by the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary and the Power Squadron. That education is just as important for paddlers, who also need to know how to handle, flip and right their boats.
It means acquiring some skill in navigation and using the many tools that tell us where we are and help others find us, starting with smart phones and GPS and including good old-fashioned paper charts.
It means checking the weather before you go out, and it means being willing to give up your excursion when storms are forecast and small craft warnings apply.
Lighthouses were lifesaving reminders of the unseen, uncertain rule of the water gods in their own domain. Now we have to count on ourselves to stay safe on the water.
Sandra Olivetti Martin
Editor and publisher
[email protected], www.sandraolivettimartin.com