30 june 2008, Haines

The 50% chance of rain day turned into another dry day with a bit of sunshine as well. Only in the early evening it finally started to drizzle and rain. We left Ketchikan in dry weather and had a fair amount of wildlife near Snow Passage including breaching whales and some agitated seals sitting on the buoy. This morning while sailing up the Lynn Canal we saw again numerous whales, although very little tail flipping or other wild behavior, just slow swimming whales. All going about their business without a care in the world while we were sailing past Eldred Rock Lighthouse, just south of Haines.

On this stretch of Alaska we find a large number of lighthouses in close proximity of each other due to the importance of the area to navigation and also due to the danger that the area can present to the ships. Until the Gold rush period there were no lighthouses at all in Alaska. Then emergency lights were erected by means of hastily put together wooden structures. These were all replaced in the 1920, by more permanent fixtures and in some instances great care was given to the design and outward appearance. If you want to know more about Alaska lighthouses, have a look at www.unc.edu/~rowlett/lighthouse/ak.htm

In the years before radar came to the ships, lighthouses were of extreme importance to shipping. A lighthouse would guard a prominent cape or entrance to the interior or a dangerous corner in the channel. Captains would note in the night orders that they had to be called if a certain lighthouse was not spotted at the expected time as that most often indicated that the ship was off-course due to wind and current. When there was fog, the lighthouse would have a fog horn going to alert ships, carefully moving in the fog, that they were approaching the lighthouse.

If a lighthouse is located in a danger area, the light quite often had sectors. That means that the sweep of the light was not just in one color, but depending under which angle you looked at it, it would be red, green or light. Thus when a ship was approaching and it spotted the lighthouse, it would carefully check if it was in the white or the green sector of the light, as the red sector most often covered a no-go area with reefs or other phenomena that make a ship run aground. There are of course lighthouses in all shapes and variations and the Lighthouse of Pharos, 2000 years ago, was even considered to be one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

Here we see an island completely covered by sectors, all indicating no go area’s and or safe area’s. It also has a narrow yellow sector indicating the safe way to approach the island. This sector is covering the deepest water area.

When sailing the Alaskan Inside passage between Ketchikan-Juneau-Skagway and Sitka, you come across quite a few of them. Guard Island(Ketchikan) Cape Decision, Point Retreat, Eldred Rock (just south of Haines), Cape Spencer (West of Glacier Bay) just to name a few. All of these are still operational but they are not manned anymore. Since the 70’s most lighthouses have been converted to automatic operation and they are serviced on a regular basis by a Coastguard Cutter or Helicopter.

Being a lighthouse keeper on the Pacific West coast was not always fun. Sometimes during the winter the bad weather could last for weeks and relieves and supplies could not be brought in. The bad and gloomy winter weather without much social intercourse did not do much for the sanity or mind of the lighthouse keepers and there are numerous stories around of lighthouse keepers committing suicide. If my memory serves me right it happened at the Egg island light house (Canadian inside passage) twice. Quite often the whole light keeper family would live at the lighthouse, reason why some of the lighthouses are fairly big, much bigger than needed for their direct purpose. Some of the lighthouse families were also quite big with numerous children. Apart from looking after the light there was not that much more to do, so the lighthouse keeper had to keep himself occupied in another way………..

Nowadays the significance of a lighthouse is slowly waning. High quality radars supported by electronic charts make the need for a lighthouse guarding a dangerous spot, much less of a need than before. At Cape Decision, they even stopped the fog signal after environmentalists complained that it bothered the sea lions on the rocks nearby.

To and from Haines we pass these lighthouses and as the evenings are still light enough, the guests can admire these constructions from the 1920’s.

We set sail for Juneau, right on time in a bit of a gloomy atmosphere, due to the drizzle and we will be docked tomorrow by five. The locals are talking about a warm day.