Lighthouse keeper switches to LEDs, ships confused

The keeper of Palmetto Point lighthouse replaced its 1,000-watt bulb with an LED array on Monday, cutting the lighthouse's power bill by 80% and causing, by Wednesday, three ships to stop in the channel and wait for "the real one."

The keeper, Margit Sol, 67, told Wazel News the new lamp is "four times brighter, lasts twenty years and cost less than the old bulb's annual electricity." She said she had not expected the ships to mind.

The ships mind

Captains entering the harbor on Tuesday night reported a light at Palmetto Point that was "very bright, very steady and very blue," which several assumed was the new all-night pharmacy on the coast road. Two freighters and a ferry slowed and radioed the harbor master to ask where the lighthouse had gone.

"We told them it was where it has always been," the harbor master said. "They said it didn't look like a lighthouse. We said look harder. They said it looked like a dentist."

"A lighthouse should be warm. It should look like someone's up there with a lamp. This looks like someone's up there with a laptop."

— Ferry captain, 30 years on the harbor run

The compromise

Sol has agreed to fit a warm filter over the array, which the harbor master says "takes it from dentist to bakery, which is close enough." The lighthouse will also resume its old rotation speed, which Sol had increased "because the motor could," and which captains said made the point "look like it was panicking."

The pelican on the harbor board, consulted at Thursday's meeting, was recorded as "facing the lighthouse for some time."

The bill

The city will save an estimated $11,000 a year on the lighthouse's electricity. Councilwoman Pia Serrano has proposed spending it on Pier 4, "before the shark writes again." Sol has asked for a small share to buy a second warm filter, "in case a ship still thinks it's a shop."

The old bulb is on a shelf in her kitchen. "It still works," she said. "It's just a lamp now. It had a good run."