I photographed yesterday at Pigeon Point on my return trip from Monterey to San Francisco. While there I got to visit for a short time with Nelson Morosini the head docent and Mr Dauber (I hope I got that right and my apologies if I didn't!) from the Coast Guard facility at Oakland, CA. He was down to host a local reporter who wanted to do a story on the recent incident during which a 300# chunk of iron and associated brickwork separated from about 80 feet up on the seaward side of the tower.

THE NEWS!

International Chimney, the folks who moved the Cape Hatteras light, will be at Pigeon Point next week to inspect the damage to the tower. It seems that the CG is interested in getting the damage repaired so that the light can again be opened to allow tours of the fantastic first order Fresnel lens in the lantern room. No idea when that will occur, but at least that's good news and it's hopefully in the works. There is some chance that if there is nothing but external damage to the tower that tours can be started again sooner, rather than waiting for the repairs to be undertaken and completed, with the back of the lighthouse fenced off where the ironwork fell away, but there are no guarantees on this.

RELIGHTING

In speaking with Nelson, any of you who are in that area on Saturday, November 16th will be in for a wonderful treat... that's the date that this years lighting and rotation of the first order Fresnal lens will take place. If you've never seen this majestic site and can get there, you're in for a wonderful treat. If you'd like a preview, I did a photo piece on the Nov 2000 relighting that appeared in the January, 2001 issue of Lighthouse Digest. The URL will take you to that photo story if you're interested.

http://www.lhdepot.com/Digest/StoryPage.cfm?StoryKey=939

I'll keep in touch with Nelson and will let the folks here on the forum know what happens as all of this progresses and will follow this with some posts showing the damage when I get my slides back on Monday.

Gary