Day 2, 2 June 2015

44 visitors

Lighthouse Our First Morning on the Island

We awoke to bright sunny skies after our first quiet rainy evening.  We had a nice warm room due to the little wood burning stove in the bedroom. Dottie came over around 9:30 am to help us on our first day of tours. Since our official working time was just a half hour Leon and Terrie didn’t have to report for duty. The 3 of us started to get the gift shop up and running with the cash register start up. People had already started to show up for tours and I went out to talk to them and start setting up groups. I had just started to chat when the tsunami warnings sounded at 10 am – they are tested the first Tuesday of every month. I explained to the concerned visitors that this was the case. After a few minutes, the screaming alarms stopped and we were able to start the tours of our beautiful little lighthouse.  I worked the register to take the donations for the tours and Fred started the tour in the gift shop, which was the original parlor. Later we switched around areas to host the tours and got a chance to practice giving tours in all areas of the house from the bottom floor rooms to the 2nd floor rooms to the top of the tower with our double barreled 5th order Fresnel lens.

A Little Harmless Snake Fred Found the First Morning

Everything went well for the 3 of us for about 1.5 hour of tours before the tide started to come in and send everyone scrambling to get off the island before they got too wet. We had a very special visitor at the end of the hour – Mia, a fluffy white Samoyed service dog!  We had met Mia on Saturday in the great redwood forests near Crescent City when we went for a little hike. Her parents asked us if we could take pictures of the 3 of them. It was so nice to see them all again at the lighthouse. I got to take Mia down to the gift shop and sit with her while her parents climbed up into the tower to finish their tour.  The last part to the lantern room is literally a ladder straight up. Mia was a perfect lady and gently took a few treats that her mom gave me to give her. We had the rest of the day off and enjoyed exploring our tiny ¾ acre isle in the bright warm sunshine all to ourselves since everyone had gone. We had a pasta lunch and more poking around. We saw some red beaked oyster catchers near the crossover point and snapped some photos of them.

The Lighthouse in the Late Sun

At around 3:30 pm people stared to come over with the tide going down. We did not have to open up the lighthouse but did so we could accommodate a large group of 20 and more that were straggling in after coming over in knee deep water. We had a group of 5 sisters that came over and they had no money but we gave them a tour anyway (we are not to deny anyone a tour if they cannot make a donation). They were so appreciative and fun. They said they would donate online and say real nice things about us. We finally closed and left about 5:30 pm to get more groceries and got back about 7pm. The tide was still low and we had a bunch of heavy stuff so Fred got the quad and we brought the groceries in that way. So I got to ride on the back, which was fun and saved wear and tear on us. The sunset was spectacular and people were still about till 8:30 pm. Salmon and salad dinner with a grapefruit/orange margarita for late happy hour to finish up the day. Visions of orange and swirling skies reflected in the rock strewn sea to lull me to a late arriving sleep.

Sunset