Boston Lighthouse keeper retiring

[jeanathon]

https://www.wbur.org/news/2023/12/20...hthouse-keeper

[sv_pelagia]

The LAST official lighthouse keeper in the USA!


We fortunate here in Canada that we still have lighthouse keepers.

[Bowdrie]

In the article they should have presented some info on the light itself.
Those Fresnel lenses are truly some of the last vestiges from a bygone age.
Many of the original rotating mechanisms were "floated", as it were, on a pool of mercury, the mercury furnishing a bearing with basically zero friction.
I guess that was before mercury was known to be so evil.

[Kettlewell]

I find the gradual demise of traditional aids to navigation very sad. There is nothing quite so satisfying as spotting the distant flash of a lighthouse on the horizon right where you thought it would appear after an offshore passage. For that matter, the reduction in buoyage is troubling too. One river I use frequently has lost several buoys in recent years, making a trip in the fog more adventurous than it should be. You can't really follow the chart plotter because they move the buoys frequently to where there is better water.