Yeah! Pacific!

We finally made the ocean. The sounds of the waves crashing, the seagulls, the fog horns at the channel entrance and the smell of the sea oats all make our hearts soar.

We got lucky, as we seem to do a lot. I happened to look up the Point Sur Lighthouse online as it was on my “hope to do” list. You can only visit the lighthouse by a docent led tour, and in the winter, they only do the tours at 10 AM on two days of the week. Fortunately I was looking online at 6 AM as it was nearly a 2 hour drive to get there. We were somewhat unsure in that the website said to meet the docent at the side of CA 1 at 10 AM, but when we got there, several other cars were gathered at the side of the road. To get to the lighthouse you have to cross private property under an original Spanish land grant, so the docent needed to escort us. As it turned out, this may have ended up being the hidden gem of this trip.

The lighthouse itself is on the top of a 280 foot dome of Franciscan Greenstone, the only location along the US Pacific Coast such geology exists. Scientists believe that the formation is actually the result of an ancient volcanic eruption in South America which migrated up when continental plates moved along the San Andreas Fault. However, it got here, it is an impressive formation. Construction of the station began in 1886 and operations commenced in 1889.

Originally the only way to get up to the station and its living quarters was by a flat railcar tramway hauled up and down by a steam-driven donkey engine. It wasn’t until the 1930’s when visionaries in Monterey saw to it that CA 1 was first completed down to Big Sur. That then drove the construction of a roadway encircling the formation up to the light station.

When carved out of the crown of this dome in the 1880’s to place all the station buildings it required them to blast the cap off. There was no electricity – the massive light ran on whale oil, then kerosene. There was no running water – only what they could haul up on the tramway. This was originally the only bathroom for the entire facility!

We learned that what we think about when the word aircraft carrier isn’t what we thought. We learned that on February 12, 1935 the USS Macon, an aircraft carrier, crashed off Point Sur and sank in 1,450 feet of ocean. However, the USS Macon had not sailed there and hit rocks, it flew there and crashed due to its tail having broken off causing a loss of control.

Before floating aircraft carriers took off dirigibles were used. The Macon was 785 feet long, more than the length of 3 747’s! The Macon carried 4 Sparrowhawk F-9C-2 airplanes and could lower them on hooks from the hanger deck. Once lowered the pilot would climb down the hanger gear and start up the engine. Because the stall speed of the Sparrowhawk was the same as the cruising speed of the Macon, the pilot could actually lift the “coat hanger” gear off the airship and engage in combat. Once done, the pilot could then fly under the Macon and guide its “coat hanger” back onto the rack.

An interesting coincidence came to our attention. After the Macon crashed and sank the remains of the ship could not be found despite considerable searching. Many decades later the granddaughter of the Macon’s captain spotted an artifact from the bridge of the Macon in an obscure bar in Moss Landing (interestingly, that bar lies across the street from the RV park we are staying at.) It turns out that a local fisherman had taken the piece from his nets. After convincing him they would not disclose his secret fishing spot, he led them to a spot about 5 miles south of Point Sur. Apparently the currents on the day of the crash carried the remains farther than anyone could imagine.

We also learned the method to lighthouse placement in the 1800’s. Apparently the combination of height and the powerful Fresnel lenses coupled with the curvature of the earth, ships at sea were capable of seeing the beam at least 23 miles out. A ship with a taller wheelhouse could see the beam as far as 26 miles. We learned that lighthouses were generally set 60 miles apart along the coastline. That way any ship would be out of sight of one beam heading for the next for only a few miles.

Hiking up to the top of the formation we were serenaded by a cacophony of yelps. California Sea Lions love the protection afforded by Point Sur as well as the considerable food supply in the surrounding ocean here. Surrounding the peninsula is the Point Sur State Marine Conservation Area assuring them an abundant supply.

From the top we could clearly see the former Point Sur Naval Facility. During the cold war era, 25 miles of cable snaked out into the Pacific and then fanned out into a fan of highly sensitive sound sensing nodes. Technicians housed in the concrete bunker nearest the water would listen intently for the sounds of Russian submarine activity off US shores. It is said that the technicians got so good at picking out the sounds that they not only tell you that a Russian submarine was roaming the area, they could even tell which specific submarine it was. The base is not open to tour, but the view from the light station was awesome.

Talk to you soon!