Hey everybody, I'm Vince and I'm Emily and you're listening to the lighthouse lowdown.
Welcome back to the show. Today we're sitting next to each other so it's very strange. I know
so close usually we're two feet across from each other now we're one foot next to each other.
Yeah now yeah we're doing a fun interview today so we had to sit next to each other for a camera.
We're next to each other and we're in your ears. Yeah. Welcome. So today uh is kind of a different
episode. I would ask you if you haven't to go back and watch I don't know which episode on East
Brother Light Station. 20th episode. Which was Emily's. Yeah. And today I kind of helped to put
together only because I monitor our YouTube. We had a super nice lady named Desiree Hevereau
reach out to us on our YouTube for that episode about East Brother Light Station and she shared
with us that she was actually one of the keepers there and helped to care for the light station
through COVID uh through a massive two-month power outage and through a bunch of really interesting
stories. Yeah. So today we're going to just jump right into the interview. Um we didn't record this
intro with her so we'll jump into that recording now. Thank you for listening.
Hi guys. Good morning. How are you doing? I'm glad you could join us.
I'm I'm doing all right and I'm glad I could join you too. Um this is always a little interesting
to get started when we're recording and also doing video but the video is not recording so it's just
us to hang out and we've got Bo Kat here with us. Yeah. I was gonna say who's that handsome baby.
This is Bo. He likes to hang out while we do our podcast because if he's not on my lap then he's
meowing so he's like in the back of our audio. Hi Bo. Yeah he's not wired in but um. He's got a little headset.
First off how did you find our episode on East Brother Light Station? I mean anything that has
to do with East Brother Light Station I seek out but then I also have Google alerts and
you know just keeping tabs on my girl. That's awesome. So tell us about your experience there
so starting from uh you're on the board is that correct of East Brother Light? Well I mean it goes
back further than that. The first time I saw the light station I was crossing the Richmond-San Rafael
Bridge well going from San Rafael back into Richmond. My daughter was in the car with me and she said
what's that house out there on the water and I looked and I I was like I don't know and then for
some reason it just kept you know like an earwig in my brain and so I looked up this was a while
ago and the internet wasn't quite as fast or good as it is now. I'm like typing you know
house on island near San Rafael bridge you know and then I stumbled across what it was and
the bed and breakfast and you know you couldn't take kids out there so I thought well that's that
you know as a young mom what I could afford would be trips for my daughter for special occasions
she you know we couldn't take her so but it just kept nagging at me like year after year I couldn't
stop thinking about it and I was looking at the website and saw that there's volunteer opportunities
to become a wiki that's what we call the volunteers in in honor of the olden days when people had to
trim the wicks yeah to keep the lights going so we call the volunteers wikis so I signed up as a
wiki and I was out there every set you know every once a month second Saturday of the month helping
doing whatever needed doing and then I saw on craigslist they were advertising for someone to
help with marketing and I thought oh why aren't you tapping into the volunteer base you know I
could help with that and I suggested as much then I started attending board meetings to give my
marketing reports and one board meeting they were talking about that it was going to be time to
nominate for new board positions and I said hey I'm already coming I'm already doing this this thing
so I would love to be a board member and they unanimously and happily approved my board
membership and I was a board member for a decade a volunteer for a year longer so 11 years of
taking care of it from the back end and taking care of it like on site and then I decided
well not decided I just realized at some point that I was actually meant to be on that island
to exist on the island but the only way that you could do that is as an innkeeper for the bed and
breakfast yeah as I knew as a board member so about three times three rounds I tried I tried
I tried to find a captain I tried to make it work um piece it together I so desperate was my you know
need to be there and just knowing and and over the course of 10 years it was very disappointing
for it not to work out all of my friends and family would be like you know after 10 years they'd be
like I know that's your wish I know that's your dream I know that you hope for that and I was
like no you're not listening I'm supposed to be there I just know it and it was starting to make
me like waver in my faith a little every time it wasn't working out but and I would think to myself
how could I be so wrong about something I'm so sure about it the math just would not math yeah
and and then COVID hit and we had to close the BNB down and the keepers moved on because they
couldn't make any money and we didn't have a backup plan nobody was expecting COVID uh and
and everyone else on the board married houses grant you know established can't leave except me and I
thought aha here it is how the math maths it turns a number into a variable and then it makes it work
and I got the situation in so much better a way than anyone ever has you know I didn't have to
work I wasn't out there on Coast Guard assignment I wasn't out there on board assignment as the
innkeeper I just got to live there you know and they said well you know don't give up your your
place your job uh we don't know you know sweet summer chill that we all were you know oh this
will be fixed in a month you know everything will go back to normal and um you know if we were doing
that you know mentally during COVID and I said I don't care if it's three weeks like you know this
is fulfilling my destiny so like I'm going and then they said oh well okay if you're okay with it
my my company closed down it was a tourism bureau situation so travel took a really big hit you know
yeah and the place that I was living in the in-law unit the house sold so I got a severance check
I got a relocation check and I moved to the light station all in the same week wow so the universe
was like hey you're not going to be able to work here's some money here's what you've always known
you were going to have even better than you thought you were going to have it and uh that's
how I came to be the light station keeper at East Brother light station for 14 months of the COVID
19 pandemic wow what a rare opportunity yeah things lined up sometimes and of course in many
ways COVID shuffled everyone's life around yeah but that is an awesome place to land yeah it wasn't
just lucky though and it's so clearly what was supposed to happen all along and restored my
absolute faith in the the plan that you know just there's there's a plan even though it's taking so
long you know it's it's because it's going to come to you better than you even wanted tell us about
moving to East Brother light you said you did all that got your check you made the relocation all in
a week and that was all in the same week early COVID times early COVID times I hadn't left my
apartment after the quarantine at all I was definitely one of those like super scared super
freaked out I don't want to even breathe the air outside people um and so it was scary for me but
I was like no no no I'm protected this is going to be okay I moved all my stuff into storage I took
maybe like four bins four storage totes of things to the island because it's not easy
taking anything on or off there's a small boat and then you've got a hoist you've got a big tall gang
way that goes up to the to the island so you know the the the fewer items the better and again I
didn't know how long it was going to be I didn't want to take too much I only took my summer clothes
out there because I thought okay you know it'll be over soon and just enjoy it soak it up and every
you know a couple months that kept adding and I was like my god maybe I'm gonna spend fall here
maybe I'm gonna spend winter is am I gonna get to spend Christmas you know like every time it was
just continued like gift yeah as far as being quarantined in islands about the best place
that's a kind of a specific dream come true a very specific and I missed all of the stuff
the six feet apart the everyone wearing met like I didn't have to deal with any of that
I was probably the safest person in the world yeah those are okay things to have missed in my
opinion yeah yeah so go ahead did they bring you like supplies and things while you were out there
so during that 14 month period no no I was responsible okay for for myself um because
I was responsible for myself um but since the light station typically runs as a bed and breakfast
there is two big massive pantries um sorry about that two big massive pantries um three commercial
freezers uh two commercial refrigerate you know plenty and I brought like all my stuff
you know having been super quarantining myself I was really stocked up I'm a very good cook
um so I I filled everything up and it lasted a long time I had um produce and meat being delivered
to the harbor uh so all I would have to do is drive the boat into the harbor pick up my box
and then go back I never really had to go into the mainland and I never really wanted to um
because any minutes that I lost were minutes that I would never get back yeah uh we like when we
covered the episode we talked about how there was an innkeeper position available and there was a
lot of requirements for being an innkeeper like you had to be able to drive the boat to pick up
the people and cook amazing meals and everything so did you ever think that maybe after you left
the after it had all blown over that you would be able to pick up the innkeeper position and be able
to do all those things or like were you prepared for being able to do all that the the keeper for
running the bed and breakfast position is very demanding and does have a lot of and as as I'd
mentioned I'd been trying to get that position yeah in that 10 years um but not having uh the partner
uh of having with the captain's license you know all of that sort of thing it it just it couldn't
work so and and I really just had convinced myself like I can piece this together I can find a
captain no actually living out there you you can't just get to know someone that you're running a
business you really have to have to have an established relationship yeah with a person so
no it wasn't going to work for me to be the innkeeper but I didn't have to be I I got it in
so much better of a way and I did have in the beginning there um Captain Jared Ward um who
never gets enough credit in my opinion uh for all of his efforts and Captain Jared was out there
as a co-light station keeper he was in the main building and he was uh teaching me how to drive
the boat um how to fix equipment how to run the generators how to you know he taught me all of
that while we while we were out there when he was out there he was still working he was being
chartered for boats and captaining so we wouldn't see each other too much but when when we he had
downtime he was teaching me uh if we had a big storm and you know sections of the fence fell
apart you know we had to we had to patch that up and how to you know refill the propane tanks and
and all of that and we didn't know and again it's so interesting the the faded woven tapestry of it
all that the power was going to go out yeah and you know the boat is up on a hoist and the hoist
only works when there's electricity uh so Captain Jared couldn't get off the island and go to work
and he said you know what uh you got about a half of a day with me to learn whatever else you need
to learn but I've got to get off I have work so he strapped his dog to his chest got a backpack and
launched a kayak in the water and paddled him his way back to the mainland and that was that I was
there alone after that and thank god he had taught me everything that he taught me because I needed
that to survive the no power days which were two months in totality so that yeah well how did that
happen like how did the power go out and like how did how did you navigate that whole thing
so it was the evening of March 31st and um up to 2021 and my lights started flickering in my
quarters and I stepped out and Captain Jared was out on the balcony of the historic building
and everything was flickering and so we were looking at the mainland at shore to see if
something was flickering on shore you know maybe it's just a general problem nothing was flickering
except for with us and then everything went black and it was pretty late we were we were both going
to go to sleep anyway he said we'll check it out in the morning I said okay so the morning is April
Fool's Day April 1st and nothing no power for sure and so we called um the president of the board and
let him know what was going on and uh again Jared said you know he got it got a couple hours with me
but he was starting to get cagey like I gotta get off I'm trapped you know and it was uh
poor his dog his poor dog Lena her face when they were kayaking she was so worried she was real low
down onto the guy it's so cute and he said you know you you might need to think of he's like I
he he would always say you know God Desiree like you never leave this place I know it's cool but
you never effing leave and I said I don't want to leave I don't ever want to leave uh so then he
said well now I know you don't want to leave but you might really have to consider leaving I don't
know what the problem is or how long it's going to be but this is something you might need to think
about disregarded that because there was no way I was going to leave my girl in her darkest hour
I wouldn't deserve the magic that she was giving me if I would just abandon her like that so it
was a rough two months I would only get to shower like once a week I couldn't have like fresh um
food you know dairy anything like that I was piecing together meals at the end it would be
like crackers and broccoli you know from my garden it was fine it was fine I was happy to do it I
would do it a million times over you're a real wiki yeah it's an adventure so uh when the power
first went out I assume you had a cell phone was your main uh communications with the land the
inland this was very complicated um yeah I had a cell phone uh we had a we have a generator from
the 1930s bigger than me and because he's such an old guy you can't run him regularly or he like
he gets tired I named him gentry so I could run him for about an hour a day I would charge I would
plug in all my laptops and my phones and get full charges but I would use one of the laptops
specifically just as a battery pack because sometimes gentry did break and if I couldn't
charge I couldn't call out in in a true emergency so I would never use up all my power just in case
because gentry broke about five times um and the first time he broke um I didn't know what you know
a piston from a pepperoni and I called the board they said you know we've got you know we've got
our guys Steve Phillips of Penn Grove Power and Implement Museum he works on old antique machinery
he will be able to to tell you what's going on at this point I had like 26 percent power left
on my phone so I called him um and he's he's on an age but very smart like one of the smart is a whip
so I talked him through how to download a duo so that we could like essentially facetime
so that he could then see and talk me through how to take apart what he knew was going on
yeah and it was like old technology meets new technology for the save right um and so he sent
a part down with a board member who drove it to the harbor and then the harbor master who was having
engine trouble of his own rode it out to me and then called Steve again so that he could show me
how to install it and fix the the generator my gosh full team effort absolutely all hands on deck
and I got so good uh with that generator I could smell if something was off I could hear if something
was off and um it was my only source of power so I was really protective of it and I needed that
power because then of course the whole world found out about the no power situation and news
articles people were calling the gofundme account was up and I felt like it was such a critical time
to somehow to touch every person who called because maybe that person knew uh someone else and the
money was coming in and I I was using the power up every day just trying to just reach people's
hearts about saving it because at that point we understood it was a failed submarine cable okay um
and even though it was the responsibility of the coast guard uh they they didn't really want the
million dollar price tag right um the cable itself was 150 000 laying it was like another 800 000
and and they said you know our real obligation is to keep the light flashing so we'll stick a solar
panel up there and be done yeah and I said but that leaves us with no power to run the bnb
it was kind of a well then that's your that's your problem isn't it I mean you guys can come up with
the the money so yeah and I was actually watching the light too it it was like living back in time
I can't tell you it was like a time machine so it is an active aid to navigation the light has to
flash when I would run the generator it would power the backup batteries which had about 72
hours on them but when the generator would break I couldn't recharge those batteries and so the
coast guard said I had to keep an eye and if the light wasn't flashing then they would have to
issue a state of emergency to get like you know a backup um generator funded by the coast guard out
there so I was literally keeping the light during that time as well so it was um such a unique
such a unique time traveling experience yeah so cool and so horribly stressful there was a lot
of steps uh to having no power but I wasn't stressful I was excited to rise up to whatever
challenge the day brought and it would be habitual things but then the occasional oh crap
gentry broke or you know the day tank is leaking and half of my diesel fuel is all over the floor
you know like what do I do you know yeah so it sounds like you were busy to say the least yeah
but what was what was the day to day like before and then during the power failure did it was there
a significant change it sounds like all these activities you were doing absolutely so before
you know if it was just a regular you know non-rainy non-windy day I could just do whatever
came if it was particularly windy I would do inside things if it was particularly nice I would
do outside things I kind of started to befriend a raven who I named Edgar Allen so great focus
was spent every morning on trying to get him closer yeah you know I'd spend a good hour trying to get
Edgar closer and I could get him about three feet away from me and then Edgar took a wife
oh Brandy Alexander and she would never get near me but I would feed them every day and then I would
have to keep the seagulls away from the Raven's peanuts because he was priority I would throw them
some stuff too there was a week long wonderful period of life where you know everything was
hatching and there were so many nests because there weren't guests walking around all the time
there were nests everywhere I mean hanging safety goggles had little nests built into the eye socket
everywhere and there was a duck that had a nest right outside of my entrance that I was watching
anyway one of her ducklings got stuck in the brush and she couldn't get it out so she left the duckling
left the duckling and then I was like I'm her mother now you know I can do this for her so
raising a little duckling um feeding Edgar and Brandy uh is looking for rainbows if it was a rainy
tending to my garden uh duolingo all the things that you say if you had infinite time oh grow a
garden oh I'll learn a language oh you know like I was doing all of that stuff um when the power
went out the the tasks went up quite a bit um I was having to when the generator would be on I'd
have the ice machine on so I had to get buckets of ice to keep the one freezer you know I had some
blocks of stock acting as like blocks of ice and the one freezer for some kind of protein so I would
have to swap out the ice um twice a day I had to gather kindling every evening because it was
cold like you can see your breath cold still at the light station so every morning I needed to
start a fire um and a funny anecdote because I'd been feeding Edgar and Brandy for months and months
and they say ravens and crows will bring you presents right yeah and I nothing and not that
I was you know I was still gonna feed them whatever but I was like okay maybe these ones just
you know don't um but when the power was out and they had seen me gathering kindling and every night
they started leaving me bundles of twigs that's awesome from trees that weren't at the light
station so they were bringing them over for me because that's what they saw me like needing
and I just how do you not melt yeah ravens are supposed to be incredibly intelligent I wonder if
they're helping you out they knew what they were doing they absolutely were helping me out
indisputably that's incredible so was power restored via a new submarine cable or solar
system or what what happened there so we raised um a fair amount of money in a short amount of
time we were able to pay a company to splice the cable which is not a long-term or permanent fix
but you can get some years out of a splice and um the regulations were kind of starting to lift
and it was time to start talking about uh reopening the bnb with a little bit more regulation like
the people would have to prove that they were vaccinated and you know everything was getting
double extra clean and um the splice would hold long enough that we could reopen the bnb
try to recoup some of our financial losses and try to put aside some more money towards
the permanent fix of the submarine cable so yeah it's right now it's living on spliced power
that's incredible so i haven't had any recent touches with east brother light so it sounds
like the airbnb is back up to speed normally receiving guests nice yeah it reopened september
of 2021 okay so was that effectively uh ended like your care of the lighthouse or were you able to
stay there a little longer i stayed until august of 2021 um late august and we had
and we had contacted um some former keepers let me i cannot emphasize this enough and people
really don't understand how hard these keepers work it is more than 24 7 they don't have days
off it's difficult it is hard hard work and keepers turn over approximately every two years
sometimes a little less sometimes a little bit more i've been through so many keeper interview
processes and we weren't getting i don't want to say good enough but i'm gonna say good enough
we weren't getting good enough applicants and we reached out to some former keepers who since
leaving the light station were living on their sailboat having adventures around the world
and they had been there for three years when they were keepers and they were willing to come back and
that's really the only way you could really restart it up um and add the components of all the covet
precautions to someone who has already done it that was the only way it was going to work yeah
so brian and stephanie came back for about two years and now there's um there's drey and charity
that are out there and they've been out there for about a year and the next set of keepers will
and on and on it goes like it has since 1980 that's so cool so much responsibility and customer
service all down to two people you have to have elite elite interviews yeah what is that process
like what do you see between the candidates is that something you can discuss sure uh we'll get
applications we'll weed down the ones that we think have a strong chance we interview them sometimes
we do second rounds of interviews um we give them scenarios we ask them questions we give them the
reality of the situation you know do you think you can handle you know not having a life outside of
this for yeah you know two years most people's family milestones happen on weekends birthdays
celebrations graduations babies being born weddings you're not going any of that are you going to be
okay with that you know what how would you handle a guest who x y and z because we've had that
and and we have had situations where we'll choose a set of keepers and then when the magnitude of it
really hits them they back out oh no we've had to go with like our third and fourth option sometimes
um because that's how it works out we've had people that before the two years is up they're like you
know what i can't we we've got to go we don't make anybody stay and we just start the process
again one year the hunt went viral so where we would get maybe six real applicants this time we
had thousands of applicants and and we had to you know weed through each one of them 50 55 were viable
candidates well it felt like we were interviewing all the time that that round i mean we were three
four times a week having to convene as a board interviewing all of these applicants taking it
seriously so viral has its its uh pluses and minuses yes my gosh that sounds like a lot of dedication
so are you still are you still on the board or are you still helping with that process or are you
kind of moved on from east brother i in my heart i will never move on from east brother that is the
great love of my life and i am not by my decision or my desire at all i am no longer a board member
um i don't want to get into that part of it um because you know people can ruin good things
other people and egos but i just really i don't want to take away from how wonderful and how magical
and i don't want anyone to be like oh well that's not right i won't go there go there yeah don't
don't shoot yourself in the don't miss out go there everyone should go there it is going to be
one of the top three best experiences of your life i don't hold bad feelings i still love the
light station i still want people there yeah well there's some other things i saw it sounds like
your life is full of adventure the hotel mac the ss red oak are just some that popped up in my quick
search of you and i'm sure it's an incomplete list also volunteer burning man richmond museum
association but i'm sure the incomplete list of previously interviewed by united states lighthouse
society richmond standard richmond pulse east brother beer company which i enjoyed in world of
nuance that recent youtube video that was huge um do you have any ideas about or maybe you already
have recording some of your adventures whether it be audio recordings or writing a book or something
like that or something i do have plans for a book i thought it was just going to be about the light
station and then things just kept happening for me um the light station just filled me up with
the light station just filled me up with this magical light and ever since then i'm just
it's like a magnet for these amazing adventures and i'm still in it so there's not really time to
to write it because i'm it's still writing itself essentially right and it's kind of nice to have
some time because your perspective on things changes with time and i think to have a well-rounded
perspective before i put pen to paper will be helpful and um i already have the title for the
light station book i'll be our brother's keeper nice and the aisle is i s l e love it right
sorry you're ahead of it yeah reading about all this and watching your interviews and everything
after august of 2021 where did life take you after that so i think it was around july that i got a
phone call from the richmond museum association i had been a board member there for two terms
so they were they knew me and everyone knew me when the power went out and i think i really
proved my metal to people who would look at me and say there's no there's no way this girl's gonna
you know do these things or deal with this stuff i i think i really proved myself um you know tough
and pioneering and so uh the shipkeeper position there's two shipkeepers that can trade off and
came up and they said hey you know would you be interested and and i thought again with the plant
look at how it all just lines up and i said sure and i said when does it start and they said late
august which is when i was moving off the light station yeah perfect so i walked down the gangway
of the light station and i walked up the gangway to the ship on the same day to take my stuff
and i was so nervous about you get used to you get used to things i got used to
the sound of the water the sound of the seagulls um not worrying about a calendar or a clock
i was so nervous about what my next step was going to be and and fully immersing back into
the mainland and you know all the people and so it was nice to still kind of be on the outskirts
to still hear the seagulls to still hear the water um to be on a ship that i had been visiting
for years of my life i didn't even need to be shown around i knew my way around already
um and it was so cool it was so cool and then two months after that i got a phone call about
being the innkeeper at the hotel mac from a childhood friend who was the current innkeeper
and moving on and i said well sure i can i can do both and then two months after that the richmond
museum association said hey the executive director of the museum is leaving we're thanking you and i
thought i don't know if i can tell all of that but i'll try and that was a hard year 2022 was
22 was a year very little sleep and no time off whatsoever but i i did it you know i did all three
and i just continue to make myself proud yeah that's amazing yeah it sounds like you've got
a great pulse on richmond you're uh you're very well connected you know more than most and you're
right in there something i like to bring up we talk about lighthouses um so i don't know the
san francisco bay area too well but east brother light is most near richmond is that right that's
correct and it's in a really rough channel which is why there needs to be in a lighthouse in the
first place um that's where i learned how to drive a boat oh my gosh right yeah there was a lot of
yelling and crying it's like trying to drive a manual and rush hour traffic is your first time
it's it's even harder well driving the boat on the open waters fine it's trying to land the fine
details of landing because you know you're wanting to get in in their small detailing nuances and the
water is just like pushing you wherever it wants to push you yeah and we've had a lot of adventures
um is there anything else you want to talk about today or questions for us
so um if i could share some historic anecdotes that i think are particularly um interesting and
or parallel uh to experiences um you guys obviously are familiar with the stenmark era
so the exit that you take to get to the light station was renamed stenmark drive in honor of
the stenmarks um tom butt who is president of the east brother light station non-profit he was also
the mayor of richmond for eight years he had it changed to honor the stenmarks and we've had
stenmark descendants come out to the light station to be on the grounds of their you know their
ancestors which has been particularly special um so the stenmarks went there with two children and
they had two children while they were out there um captain stenmark having to row to san quentin to
fetch a doctor both times and you know there's no there's no real mention because at that time of
course you don't complain right but who knows what the conditions of the water were what the
weather was whether it was nighttime or i think about these things all the time just here i am
getting my you know kindling thinking oh i'm true grit but captain stenmark was true grit you know
um and they were out there for 22 years which is amazing um initially they there was a teacher
that was sent um by the you know county to come teach the children so she would stay in the
the the little school house uh quarters which are now the innkeeper the innkeeper's quarters
which is where i where i was living um and then when the train came um then they changed it uh so
that the the stenmarks would have to row the kids to shore and the kids would ride the train in
into town to go to school but you don't think about things like that um when uh one of their
daughters was older a gentleman who worked for standard oil which is now chevron uh would row
out to court her and at the beginning he wasn't very good but he became very fluent
and rowing you know to come to come and court her and of course they were married and um so
the stenmark days are fascinating to me and i had uh you know there's different types of dreams
sometimes there's dreams that are not dreams so i had a lot of those when i lived out there i mean
i was just constantly getting messages and prophetic dreams um one of them in particular
lady stenmark um and an accompanist were coming up from the north shore of the island which is
not where the dock is now but it is where it was during that time so uh lady stenmark came up
she was all in victorian garb you know and she's pointing at all of the things that were different
and then she sees me and she points at me and then she points down and i look down and suddenly
i'm standing in the garden and there's this swiss chard growing all around me so it was clear that
lady stenmark wanted me growing chard in my garden and i put six plants out there so and they did
really well um so that's my stenmark that's my little like stenmark story and and then after the
stenmarks were the kofads and they had two grandchildren and their daughter who lived in
berkeley little walter and emma fanning um their their dad was away at world war one and the
spanish influenza was ravishing the world much like we were dealing with during covid so um
walter and emma's grandparents the kofads said you guys are moving out here to the light station
to escape the flu and so i was living at the light station escaping the flu and walter as a very old
man in the 70s when the coast guard wanted to demolish the the structures and the non-profit
formed and the historic designation was given walter was there as president of the board he was
on that light station uh day in and day out working towards the restoration with his own hands
he built himself a little a little room that he would sleep in because you know he was there all
the time and we subsequently turned that room into walter's quarters yeah as a place where the guests
can stay um where wal- good old wal used to stay i never met him myself but um i think that anyone
who i get all emotional anyone who loved the light station like that like me i have so much respect
for so my little duckling who i found i named her dakota fanning after walter
so after walter fanning and i moved every historic artifact that had to do with walter
and his um and the kofads into walter's quarters area so not only do you get to see the kofads
not only do you get to stay in his quarters you get to see all of the things that um are from his
lineage from his history there at the light station um so that's my walter panning story um and then
i mentioned that the day tank was leaking diesel fuel one time because i came in to turn the
generator off and everything was wet i lived completely feral out there i never wore shoes and
you know nothing fancy so i walk into this wetness and i like freak out you know apparently diesel is
a little different than gas it's not as flammable i didn't know that though at the time and i was
thinking oh my god you know i i threw my cell phone out of the building you know in case it rang
or something you know you know spark you know and i'm picturing a fire much like the fire that happened
um in the boathouse uh poor willard who who burned his hands all up trying to fan that fire out the
whole gangway burned up i don't even know how they they got out there to them it was just
uh but i i poured flour and baking soda and any powders that i had to like soak it up
it was just the scariest day and i thought oh god and now i understand like the panic that he must
have gone through like you know the uh the responsibility that was on his shoulders like
that and it it was like walking in the feet of history out there there were a lot of parallels
and i'm infinitely grateful i i could never explain how grateful i am to have had to be
gathering that kindle kindling to had to be smelling for a week before i could shower to
had to be not eating correctly for those two i'm so grateful for all of that yeah and especially
like at that time no one else was willing to do it in the lighthouse needed somebody like
you and that's why the time had gone on so long without being able to fulfill your dream is that
you're you're being saved for a specific moment where nobody else would be able to fill that hole
so it's amazing yeah and and i thought about that too i thought this is why it has to be me
who else was gonna do that who else destiny man yeah it's a really it's a really neat thing
there's all kinds of crazy spiritual unexplainable stories like your prophetic dreams and those kind
of um like the destiny sort of things a lot of those things happen around lighthouses it just
seems like it's kind of like a path to another world that people experience all kinds of crazy
stuff it it changes a person though too or it did me i i got to sit down and watch the most beautiful
sunsets every night you know i i wasn't interested in tv the birds would all come in from wherever
all the directions encircle west brother and land and the sunsets behind it were just and now i i
look at sunsets as such beautiful overwhelming things um on my birthday it was raining and
usually that would suck right out here but it meant that i had rainbows all day all throughout the sky
all throughout the sky on my birthday a gift from my light station and it it changed me yeah
my friend gary at the harbor he always says oh dez you saved her she saved me that's incredible
a lot of people say you know they win the lottery one of their plans is to to find an island and
throw away their cell phone i think it's a different context but uh we're all looking
for something like that some real experience especially with a lighthouse and all that history
to connect with i think uh you know the the sitting in the sand with a with a drinking hand
is a different idea but it's kind of the same hope that people have some adventures some history
some stories and something real to connect with absolutely and not all of us are so fortunate and
and gratitude is an amazing healer yeah so so your experience with i don't want to speak for
you but it's meant to be a question your experience with each brother light and your i'll say spiritual
connection to it those dreams that you have these feelings that you have how has that gone into your
other work that you've done because from meeting you online and also watching other recordings and
videos of you it seems like you carry that passion around is that just all over the place you see
through a different scope now completely different scope i um i i still believed in a lot of um you
know universe and juju and all of that before going out there but it's so much more intense now like
i never questioned the signs and the signals now they're they are out there the the day before the
keepers were coming back on to like get things restarted my last official day alone at the
lighthouse i walked out to the garden in the morning to you know feed feed the birds and i saw this
it was on one of my squash leaves and i saw this thing happening with some cocoon uh
and i thought let me go run and get my phone but then i thought no no no this is just for me yeah
so i sat there for about an hour and i watched this this thing that i mean this is going to
sound gross but this is what it was this thing came out of it that was the color of pus like
not quite yellow not quite green kind of creamish and it like opened up its wings and dried out and
slowly started turning red and getting its spot i watched a ladybug be born oh my gosh and and
fly away and it was such a a reassuring message to me because of course i knew that the you know
time was going to come this isn't forever i'm going to have to leave of course i'm going to
be sad about it of course right but it was like a message from the from the island like
you are also being born a ladybugs are symbols of hope as well isn't that right or is it luck maybe
i don't know i'm losing it i think there's some either way either way what a wonderful reassuring
you're okay you're safe we still got you we always talk about or at least i do i bring it up every
community that we talk with someone about their lighthouse their local lighthouse of course we're
a little bit biased because we're already in the lighthouse circle right that's how we start the
conversation but it seems to be culturally significant and i think that is not so much
in the physical presence of lighthouses but people's experiences you know they have memories they
travel with family they go out there sometimes they see ghosts you know there's all sorts of stories
and even to modern day with people living around lighthouses and i think it's we've talked with
folks and this always comes up maybe i always bring it up but it just seems so significant to
me it's it's really been a pleasure to hear some of your experiences out there yeah today because
we everyone loves history we love to read and hear about things that have happened but when you're
talking about living history about modern day events and feelings that may or may not be captured
you know by a cell phone like you said or in a book or on an interview there's so much of life
that is not recorded but it's really special it's it's something to appreciate it it's really cool
absolutely and i i have a respect for lighthouses they keep ships from sinking and um it's a
it's a i i i i respect lighthouses i do um but people always say oh here look at this lighthouse
or let me get you this lighthouse statue oh you love lighthouses don't you i love a lighthouse
yeah and by proxy all of her cousins you know but i love a lighthouse yeah she's mine we have
something that no one else has had and that no one else could ever take from me yeah incredible
desiree you have anything else you want to talk about today no um thank you guys for keeping the
light on uh and spreading the word about um our beautiful lighthouses that are just few and
far between more and more these days yeah and we're so grateful that you could talk to us and
share all of your genuine experiences with the lighthouse because you know in our episodes we
cover the history and things that we find online but the real feelings so like the genuine human
experiences there can't really be captured in just short summaries of things that happen in
history so we love to be able to expand especially on specific lighthouses on those really really real
things it's really real and it's really hard i know that i'm over here like rainbows and magic
but it was hard living it was really hard living and so i respect our forefathers
in a way that i didn't before yeah definitely i don't know how to end it any better than that
it's such a pleasure okay sounds good well keep in touch uh let you know when this airs and uh
see what we can help you with or talk to you about in the future yeah definitely great thanks so much
and i'll send you tons of stuff and you can pick what you want okay thank you so much thank you
all right bye guys bye well that was a fun interview what are we like 80 years old yeah um
i'll just say uh
you wouldn't even let me do it you just do it
so check us out on our website the lighthouse lowdown.com you can send us an email the lighthouse
lowdown at gmail.com and you can check out our instagram we have a youtube uh you can listen
our podcast anywhere um all of that you can find on our website thank you vince for planning this
interview and executing it oh so Vince is mad at me you say bye see you next time on the lighthouse
lowdown bottom all the way no
you