The Tribune

IN 1967 a British paper in Liecester carried an article about dramatic stories told by well-regarded former head of the lighthouse service in the Bahamas, Commander R. Langton Jones. It covers the 1859-built Great Issac Light, and this legend is known as the Lady in White, based on the wreck of the Cape Cod ship Elijah White. The story is that after a hurricane a local fishing boat found a dead white horse, many bodies clinging to wreckage, and a young woman in white clutching a weeks-old baby who was alive, and later raised in England. The legend arose from visions of the dead mother on the island during full moons searching for her child.

In 1969 two lighthouse keepers - veteran D.H. Eades and assistant Harry R. Lightbourn—went missing, the station, which was inexplicably abandoned. No distress signals were sent, between June 28th  and August 4th the were gone without a trace. It is unsolved since, but since the spectre of violence is a possibility the light was automated soon after. As for Langton Jones, artefacts from his estate were recently circulated for sale.

A letter from G. Weech to The Tribune in July 1921 clarifies the “history of the Library Crab.” George Weech wrote the editor to say “the crab in question was caught off the lighthouse by Mr. Charles W. Weech, while he, Mr. T. V. Matthews and myself were fishing about forty years ago.” It was kept in the Weech’s Nassau dry goods store for many years, then given to George Weech, who gave it to the public library where it went on display. It must have been quite a large crab – one wonders where it is 100 years later? 

In the fall of 1874 Mr. J.C. Rahming spoke about the “song” he paid for the wreck of the Pacific Mail steamer Guatemala, which ran aground on San Salvador and was holed. Rahming bought the anchors and chain and good coal, and hired ships SS City of Cadiz and wrecker ship Relief to obtain as much as they could from carcass. Captain Hildreth and the insurer, French Lloyd’s, were watching the proceedings anxiously. Rahming bought the remains of the large ship in his wife’s name – she was American – and planned to fly the US flag on her when and if salvaged.

A hurricane in October 1866 caused the ship American Eagle from Boston to turn turtle off Cat Island from which “many dead bodies of men and women were picked up.” Off Crossing Rocks, Abaco – north of Hole in the Wall Light – a centreboard schooner wrecked completely with all hands drowned. Both the 1,028 ton Maine ship Saginaw under Captain Boutelle and the Lord Elgin or Norway, under Charles J. Christiansen with 500,000 feet of timber were abandoned at sea north of Grand Bahama, the latter just a mile from shore. A ship named Albert Adams, a brig under Captain Ayres, was loading wood at San Salvador when it was wrecked in the fall of 1866. In 1898 a yacht named Sylph from Boston was also wrecked at San Salvador without loss of life.

According to The Tribune in 1973, the nation’s nine lighthouses cost $500,000 annually to operate. A government radio operator on Bay Street calls the keepers daily at 10 am to “collect information and send instructions.” This is the Marine Navigation Aids Division of the Department of Trade and Industry (formerly Board of Trade), headed by Ronald R.  Hargreaves. The Imperial Lighthouse Service carried out the daily duties. The General Lighthouse Fund pays for it, said Commander John Coker, inspector of the lights. Costs covered salaries and the lighthouse tender vessel, named Ana Patricia.

Ana Patricia was a tender of 358 tons that was owned by the Roberts Shipping Company. The company is owned by four brothers, and three of those run it, from Scott the president and CEO to Everett, captain, and Bert the senior engineer. The vessel was only 7 feet deep, and Commander Cooker did his round of inspections of all lights every six months. They also drop off cooking gas, food, medical supplies and supplies for the light. The Ana Patricia for her part was at sea weekly, and Captain Roberts’ family often traveled with him when not in school. One project during independence was modernizing the batteries and switching from vapourized oil to batteries.

Light keeper Ulric Derrington Gibson of Bird Rock Light was the longest-serving with 25 years of duty. He is from nearby Landrail Point and likes the work. After three months of work they have one month off. To get supplies to the light, a small dingy takes them through the surf then they are “dragged over sharp slipper coral rocks up to the lighthouse.” This includes fuel for the light in 45-gallon drums. In an emergency aircraft can land supplies, however the plane pilots consider liquid petroleum too dangerous to carry and drop. Interestingly the Bahamas ILS covers administration of Sombrero Light, 100 miles north of St. Kitts, and manned by Anguillans. At that time of independence movements globally, Britain only looked after a few lights in Sri Lanka and the UK.

Keeper Gibson said that some keepers want to stay beyond the three months to make more money, and many stay half a year without a break. Other lights have two year shifts. With nine lighthouses there are 25 permanent keepers, to cover rotations as well as emergencies. The are provided with furnished homes and food. During the 1920s and 1930s all the lights had substantial re-builds. With independence all of them were allocated to management and financing by the new nation, relieving the UK of responsibility for the majority of their overseas lighthouse duties.

Lighthouses can attract all sorts. In the fall of 1973, a Canadian couple named Lapierre strolled hand in hand down the long beach to the Paradise Island Lighthouse. Near the Huntington Hartford house, they went for an impromptu swim, only to emerge later and find that their handbag with cash was stolen. The empty bag thrown in the bush and two persons were seen by neighbors running away. This happened at noon. The day before a couple had been held up and robbed at gunpoint in the same spot.

In 1893 a London Parliamentary debate lead by Sir M. Hicks-Beach focussed on why a  bid to make a lighthouse tender from an existing gunboat had been exceeded: the answer was “the work had been done with the greatest care and economy.” There was wider debate, carried in the UK papers, about the relative life-saving effectiveness of rescue and patrol boats versus fixed “pile” type lighthouses with only two or three lighthouse keepers or tenders, with limited abilities to both leave the light to rescue mariners in distress and keep the light itself running, which was their primary duty.

On Christmas Eve of 1975 the Bahamas Marine Police arrested Soviet-built fishing boats with communist Cubans in them poaching off Cayo Verde, east of Ragged Island, and they were fined over $30,000. The 20 men were jailed as well as fined.

In 1989 the San Francisco Chronicle told of a couple’s “cruise to hell” in the Bahamas. It centered around Captain Ray Murphy aboard the charterd sailing ketch SeaBird. American George Davis was a former chief in the US Navy and when he and  his wife lay eyes on their new skipper, the agreed to call him Murfino – a mythical captain from hell. Though they chartered SeaBird for a month’s cruise in the southern Bahamas, not a week would pass before captain and yacht were shattered. Author Angus Phillips consulted Captain Murphy’s sister Pat Miller, a maritime insurance underwriter from Annapolis to verify these hard-to-believe details. Davis, age 62,  had served in the Turks & Caicos and invited four friends on the 51-foot boat to return there and Bahamas.

When the original charter boat backed out in Key West on Christmas Day, they went  with Murphy, including his waist-long hair, pirate-themed jewellry on his neck and in his ears, and 10 cases of  whisky, six of French wine, and 50 cases of beer. As they headed out on New Year’s Day, the passengers met Jim Reed, the first mate, who Captain Murphy took  pleasure in teasing, about flogging him at the mast, and pouring rum down each other’s throats. After a 60-foot Cuban patrol boat intercepted and released them, they made it through the Old Bahama Channel towards Great Inagua.

At that point things went south for the eight persons aboard when the LORAN navigation system failed, they ran out of fuel and batteries, and efforts to sail towards an unknown land mass upwind from them proved beyond their abilities. Then night fell. Their skipper devised a plan to sail up to the lee of the unknown island and drop anchor for the night. They barrelled ahead, and at the moment he odered anchor dropped the fibreglass sailboat crunched into the reef.

Capatin Murphy said it would be fine since “she will bounce off – she’s got a thick hull.” Only the SeaBird didn’t bounce off. Their skipper’s first reaction was to fill a  large glass with 36 ounces of rum and a splash of Coke down below. Then he sent a life line onto shore, along which the six passengers lowered themselves to relative safety. Murphy went back to SeaBird to talk with his mate. As the night got cold the guests asked the crew for blankets, and were told “the captain says stand away from his boat.” When dawn broke, Murphy emerged, screamed angrily at sea gods and charter guests, and went below. Then Ray Murphy shot himself, stranding his crew and guests on remote Cayo Verde, 120 miles west-northwest of Matthew Town, without water. They activated an EPIRB satelite emergency beacon, thanks to which the US Coast Guard found them and rescued the seven survivors. 

They were taken to George Town, questioned for a few days, and released. Murphy’s sister said that his skull had been badly injured in an  auto accident that caused him pain and depression. Further, his experience as a seagoing captain was limited to day charters under motor, rather than international charter expeditions. Not long ago, when voyaging through southern Eleuthera, a severe wind storm had driven a medium sized sailing yacht ashore. Usually this would be a survivable event, however the boat was its occupant’s only possession, and its destruction destroyed him as well, to the extent that, like Captain Murphy, he ended his life. Some tragedies not even lighthouses can save us from.