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I have so far briefly described the inspection of two light stations. There were some twenty others, but the trip to Navassa light station eclipsed them all. It was made twice a year and had to be planned with care. The Lilac was only 155 feet long, nearly 30 years old, and had to be loaded meticulously for this 150-mile voyage out of San Juan, along the south side of San Domingo and Haiti, stopping of course, at three light stations enroute and overnight at Mayaqüez.
The ten-thousand-foot peak now called Mount Trujillo, could be dimly seen as the tender plowed along the south of the country in control of the U.S. Marines. The extreme southern tip was rounded when Alta Vela Light tower was sighted on the hill top. The western Cape Dame Marie of Haiti was passed close by and, as planned, Navassa Island, in the Windward Passage, was sighted in the early morning. As the tender approached, the tall reinforced concrete tower stood out clearly against the sky.
The necessity for this station was brought about by the opening of the Panama Canal. It is located 30 miles west of Haiti and 90 miles south of Guantanamo Bay Naval Station, Cuba, an isolated U.S. light station if there ever was one and, as I found, a very difficult station for Puerto Rican keepers and their families to live on happily. The tender brought a keeper and his family to relieve one of the keepers every six-months’ trip. The others were unhappy and homesick for Puerto Rico.
Navassa Island is about two miles long and one mile wide, of coral limestone formation, full of caves like Mona Island, with steep sides, no beach landings, and a nearly flat top, approximately 240 feet above the sea. The tower in the center is 150 feet high with its foundation resting on solid rock. The quarters for the keepers consist of a reinforced-concrete building 58 feet square, built in Spanish style, with a high single story and a patio in the center. The station is 600 miles from San Juan, P.R.
The contractor for building the lighthouse and dwelling found Lulu Bay handy for tying his schooner to the cliff and unloading construction materials and left the derrick after completion. So, my landing for inspection was not difficult.
I had had considerable experience with automatic acetylene lighting
equipment. For extreme reliability for an automatic acetylene light at Navassa, I designed a cluster burner with six flat flame burners in a small circle in two groups, each group piped to a separate governor and flashing mechanism, each governor separately piped down the tower and down the hill to the landing where two separate batteries of acetylene tanks were located in a tank house under the derrick boom. Supplies of gas for one year were installed for each pipe line to the governor-flasher. The light worked perfectly showing a complex flash; a long light reenforced by short flashes, punctuated by short flashes.
In case one group of lights became extinguished from any cause, such as a leaking pipeline or carbonized pilot burners, the other group of lights would continue to show. My personal knowledge of its operation over several years showed no defects. The American Gas Accumulator Company worked out the mechanism. After a good test on station, the keepers were discontinued and used elsewhere much to their joy.
To Be Continued.
This excerpt is taken from “Superintendent of Lighthouses- 9th District: 1920 to 1927” in The Making of a Lighthouse Engineer, the unpublished memoirs of Commodore Frederick P. Dillon.
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