Facebook (FB) is a great place for finding lighthouse photos, and many marine related sites such as West Coast Fisherman are also a big help. Yesterday a man I had never met before posted the photos above and below. Please give many thanks to Gordon Tolman for the photos of the MV Uchuck III with a background of the Nootka lighthouse. Continue reading Nootka Island
Category Archives: Transportation
Something a Little Different!
One of the nice things about Facebook is that you get to meet a lot of great people. One of the newest I met was Tom Crestidina on a webpage in Facebook called West Coast Fisherman.
Now my website is dedicated to lighthouses, and West Coast Fisherman is dedicated to “Fishing and fishing boat photos from the Bering to the Baja.” Tom’s pictures below are related to fishing and lighthouses! Enjoy!
For larger photos and more detailed information on the humorous drawings please go to Tom’s webpage by clicking on the photo below. Once there, click a smaller photo for details and descriptions – it is amazing the number of funny details he has added to each drawing.
Refuelling a Lighthouse
British Columbia (BC) lighthouses mostly have diesel generators unless they are close enough to a large town or city to allow a power cable to run to them.
So how does one refuel a lighthouse as most of them are sitting fairly high above the water line and very distant from a local gas station?
Well, thanks to the lighthouse keepers at Scarlett Point lighthouse and Ivory Island lighthouse for giving me permission to use their photos, I can now show you.
Ivan Dubinsky at Scarlett Point lighthouse, north of Port Hardy, BC has been photographing anything that moves and does not move at his lighthouse with his new camera and posting them on Facebook. He now has quite a few followers admiring his photos.
OK, back to the refuelling. There are many ways that I have seen it done. From most to least expensive we have helicopter slinging in fuel drums or bladders, hovercraft carrying fuel in it’s tanks, and Coast Guard ships pumping it into a fuel barge and moving it to shore.
Cruising the Inside Passage
Many of the British Columbia lighthouses, manned and unmanned, are along BC’s world-famous Inside Passage.
Today I came across a new story on the Internet about this fabulous trip and it is onboard the new BC Ferries vessel vessel MV Northern Expedition (aka NorEx).
MV Northern Expedition
The article is called Cruising the Inside Passage from explore BC. Continue reading Cruising the Inside Passage
Mise Tales Forty-Three
For an update on what a Mise Tale is then please see Mise Tales One. As mentioned earlier on the front page of my website, any photos or cartoons, or short bits of information, when it is removed from the front page, will also be included again later in the next Misc Tales. That way you can keep track of it, search for it, or copy it.
*************************
From the Toronto Sun online for May 17, 2014 comes the article See Canada from the sea on a boutique cruise
See Canada from the sea just as the explorers did and discover some of the country’s vast but relatively untouched wilderness.
Maple Leaf Adventures, a boutique expedition cruise company, explores Haida Gwaii (Islands of the People), formerly known as the Queen Charlotte Islands. . . . more
For more information: mapleleafadventures.com and Holland America Line: hollandamerica.com.
****************************
The history of Trinity House, UK On This Day in Trinity House History – 20 May 1514– The Big One! . . .
. . . and a Lighthouse Photography Competition also from Trinity House. Please check it out and vote. Excellent photos!
**************************** Continue reading Mise Tales Forty-Three
Mise Tales Forty-One
For an update on what a Mise Tale is then please see Mise Tales One. As mentioned earlier on the front page of my website, any photos or cartoons, or short bits of information, when it is removed from the front page, will also be included again later in the next Misc Tales. That way you can keep track of it, search for it, or copy it.
*****************************
Some beautiful night-time photos of lighthouses, some in a 360º panorama format from Aaron D. Priest on his website aaronpriestphoto.com.
************************** Continue reading Mise Tales Forty-One
Fishing Boats of the BC Coast
Fishing boats do not have anything to do with lighthouses you say!
Well they do, because without fishing boats (plus vessels of other types) and the men that man them we would have no need for manned lighthouses, so fishing boats are important for lighthouses and the British Columbia (BC) economy.
Trolling, Seining, Gillnetting – don’t know one fishboat or fishing method from the next? Well take a look at this page from Fisheries and Oceans Canada. It will help clarify things.
It’s Old, But Not The Oldest!
On September 21, 2013 I wrote Message in a Bottle which described a 107 year old message-in-a-bottle find. Later on October 29, 2013 I wrote More Messges in Bottles which described more messages found in bottles. It seems that everybody loves to do it!
Today I found this story in The Local – Germany’s News in English dated March 07, 2014.
Fishermen find oldest message in a bottle
German fishermen made a surprising catch this week when they pulled the oldest recorded message in a bottle out of the sea. A man from Berlin scribbled the note 101 years ago. . . . more
[nggallery id=94]
[private]
What initially looked like a normal, discarded beer bottle, nestled among fish in the Maria I’s nets, turned out to be a record-breaking find – as it contained a postcard dated May 17th, 1913 written by a man named Richard Platz.
A modest Danish postcard with two German stamps on it and a polite message asking the finder to send it on to his address in Berlin; it appears that Platz could have been trying to save on international postage fees.
But the card never arrived, instead landing in the hands of fishermen from Heikendorf in Schleswig Holstein, on Tuesday – over 100 years later.
“I had it in my hand, but then a colleague told me there was something in it,” skipper Konrad Fischer told regional newspaper the Kieler Nachrichten, explaining he was ready to throw it back into the Baltic.
“When I saw the date I got really excited,” he said.
Until now, the oldest message in a bottle listed in the Guinness Book of Records was 97 years old when found in 2012, making Fischer’s a potential record breaker.
“If the message is really this old, maybe a museum would be interested,” said Fischer, who will be taking his bottled post to experts for them to take a closer look.
Fischer has been a fisherman for 50 years and in that time has found mines, bombs, torpedoes and a corpse in the sea.
He told news agency DPA that he was not sure yet what he would do with the bottle but would “maybe auction it to the highest bidder”. [/private] Continue reading It’s Old, But Not The Oldest!
Mise Tales Forty
For an update on what a Mise Tale is then please see Mise Tales One. As mentioned earlier on the front page of my website, any photos or cartoons, or short bits of information, when it is removed from the front page, will also be included again later in the next Misc Tales. That way you can keep track of it, search for it, or copy it.
*****************************
survival necklace s1401 from Cougar Fashion in Tahsis, British Columbia
from the rainforest, for the rainforest price $12.50 this necklace is transformed to emergency fishing gear within minutes. all you need is a pocket knife.
contents: – 3.8 m. fishing line – 3.5 cm. bait hook – interlock snap swivel – split ring – 6 cm. hoochie
Now this is a unique West Coast piece. It is a very beautiful necklace and would draw comments wherever it is worn. 
I am not too sure how practical it would be with only 3.8 meters (12.5 feet) of fishing line, but anything could work in an emergency.One would be better off also wearing a Survival Strap (get one in a matching colour) to add length to the necklace. Hey, two unique pieces of survival jewelry which you can wear anytime. Check out all the other items which you can find at Cougar Fashion. Continue reading Mise Tales Forty
Light at the End of the World
Light at the End of the World
Three Months on Cape St. James, 1941
by Hallvard Dahlie (orig from Raincoast 18, 1998) with notes from Jim Derham-Reid (last keeper on Cape St. James before automation)
A strange interlude in my brief seafaring life took place in the fall of 1941, when I signed on as assistant lighthouse keeper at Cape St. James, a light perched on top of a three-hundred-foot rock at the very southern tip of the Queen Charlotte Islands. I had quit school earlier that year, at the age of sixteen, and found a job on the CGS Alberni, a lighthouse tender operating out of Prince Rupert. But when she had to go into dry dock at the beginning of September for a new wartime grey paint job and a bit of refurbishing, I chose to take a stint out at the lighthouse rather than scrape barnacles and paint for three months. Continue reading Light at the End of the World