Its sweeping beam has guided mariners to safety and cast long flickers of shadow and light across the westernmost edge of the Vineyard for many decades.
But now the Gay Head Light is slated for a lantern change, and in the process the beam will change from sweeping to pulsing.
Lieut. Matthew Stuck of the U.S. Coast Guard aids to navigation branch said recently that the Coast Guard plans to replace the optic rotating light with a flashing LED light sometime in the next few months. The current optic, installed in 1989, is outdated and replacement parts are scarce, Mr. Stuck said.
It takes five minutes for the crew at U.S. Coast Guard Station Menemsha to walk from main headquarters to the search and rescue vessel. Five minutes may seem like a short time, but add drysuits, anti-exposure and flotation coveralls, boating tools, supplies, artillery and sometimes protective vests, and a five-minute walk can feel like a lifetime.
Absent a boathouse where all their gear and supplies would normally be kept, Coast Guard crew members make this laden walk several times a day.
Beneath a billowing American flag and light breeze off the harbor, Buddy sat in salute at the U.S. Coast Guard Station Menemsha early Monday morning, chest proudly puffed, ready for his next treat.
The three-year-old golden retriever was sworn in as a seaman recruit by Senior Chief Jason Olsen at a special enlistment ceremony. With the duty crew standing behind him, Buddy became a rank and file member of the Menemsha team.
Coast Guard rescue crews medically evacuated a 13-year-old boy Saturday afternoon, after Martha’s Vineyard Hospital alerted the Coast Guard that no medical flight crew was available to transport the boy to a mainland hospital.
An Air Station Cape Cod MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crew was launched and safely transported the injured boy to Massachusetts General Hospital. The boy was suffering from a severe groin injury.
Reversing a downsizing of seven years ago, the U.S. Coast Guard soon
will expand its Vineyard presence, including resumption of full use of
the Menemsha Coast Guard station.
As part of that process, Chilmark selectmen have been told the town
police department, now a tenant at the old historic station, located on
the hill overlooking the Home Port restaurant and Menemsha Pond, must
find a new home by May 1.
The United States Coast Guard has ordered the Steamship Authority and Hy-Line Cruises to increase security measures on their ferries following the terrorist bomb attacks in London last Thursday.
Coast Guard officials said they are not sounding an alarm, but are simply taking necessary precautions following the London attacks, which as of mid-day yesterday had accounted for 52 deaths.
The sea was rough on the night of Dec. 17, when David McConky went out in the Menemsha Coast Guard 41-foot utility boat and tried to rescue a fishing boat presumed sunk south of Noman's Land. Waves off Gay Head were anywhere from 10 to 15 feet high, and he had to turn back.
Fortunately a Coast Guard helicopter rescued the three men who were already ashore on the deserted island.
Four fishermen were lost this past Friday after their boat, the
75-foot steel dragger Lady of Grace from New Bedford, sank in Nantucket
Sound 11 miles east of Cape Pogue. A call for help was never made.
Menemsha Coast Guardsmen in a 47-foot motor lifeboat discovered the
location of the sunken vessel Sunday morning. Divers from the Southeast
Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council assisted the Menemsha crew.
Already this fall one Island angler has won a brand-new pickup truck for a huge striped bass he caught and the Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby isn’t over yet.
That’s because he caught it in a different contest.
Morgan Taylor, 24, of Edgartown last week won the Angler of the Year Award in the annual Striper Cup, sponsored and run by the monthly publication On the Water. Mr. Taylor won the award for a 52-pound striped bass he caught from the shore way back in June.
In view of the fact that I am already considered by many in the “sport” fishing community as one of those dirty commercial bass fishermen, it will do little to hurt my reputation to shed some light on the history and practice of yo-yoing that has been conveniently overlooked in the knee-jerk and poorly considered reaction to lead weights being found in several derby fish this year.
