I swore that I would never start telling lighthouse stories, but since Karen posted on here, I'll tell one (since she's the one that I told that I didn't want to start telling stories to).
In November 1972, I was assigned to the U.S. Coast Guard Station at Port Huron, Michigan. I had the good fortune to live in quarters right below the Fort Gratiot Lighthouse. I gave tours, supervised it's painting and made necessary repairs to keep it lit for the lake freighters plying their way between Lake Huron and the St. Clair River.
On a very stormy night during that month, all of our boats except a 17 foot utility boat were tied up performing missions on the river and in the lower lake when we received a call that someone was in distress swimming in the water about two miles out into Lake Huron. The other boats were at least an hour from the area, so a engineer and I set out in the 17 footer. We arrived in the area to find no one in the water and after searching for about fifteen minutes, turned back toward the mouth of the river. Navigation was very difficult because of mountainous seas and heavy spray being carried by the wind. We rode over one wave followed by another and suddenly stopped with the entire boat shuddering from end to end. We had just survived a 24 foot wave, which I knew because we had struck bottom in an area with 12 feet of water normally. The compass tore off of it's mountings and we had no way to navigate back in except through the haze and spray we were able to pick out a slight glow every few seconds. To make a long story short, we made it back to the river mouth on a very slow bell, and that glow we navigated by was Fort Gratiot Light, so I have a very strong attachment to that particular light to this very day.
My Coast Guard career gave me many opportunities to see many lights and work on several of them between 1965 and 1988. In December of 1992, I saw Portland Head at my local dealers, and I bought it simply because of my love for lighthouses. My next one was Cape Hatteras (2nd version) the following December, but I still wasn't hooked. For some reason, still unknown to me, I started collecting like a mad man in 1994, and am still at it. My reason remains my love of lighthouses with the disclaimer that, if something should happen to me, my wife will probably sell most of our collection which is in the range of 145 pieces now. I also struggle with finding horizontal surfaces, but will find a way.
There you are Karen. Are you happy now. And even a Fort Gratiot Light story for St. John. I await the day Harbour Lights makes that light and hope I can get a really low number for it when it happens. I also understand that I have a terminal disease, and I hope the doctors can't find a cure for it.
