The couple with us had never been to Anclote Key before so I took them for a stroll to visit the ruins of the old lighthouse. There had once been a fairly elaborate facility there but the light had been replaced long ago by an automated aid to navigation. The keeper’s quarters and associated buildings, the water cistern and other supporting structures, were almost totally gone now, just concrete slabs and rusted metal slowly being absorbed back into the fabric of the island. The lighthouse was still operational, an open framework of rusty steel topped by a tiny weatherproof cabin at the top. But it was no longer tended by an on-site staff; powerful batteries at the top of the tower fueled the light and a sun-sensitive switch automatically turned it on at night and secured it at daybreak. In a shed at the base of the tower another huge bank of batteries kept the service cells aloft fully charged through a switchbox and long cables protected by conduit. Once a month, the Coast Guard would send a boat and the seamen would haul ashore heavy batteries to replace the ones in the shed. They would recharge the ones topside and then laboriously drag off the spent ones to their boat. The process made it unnecessary to climb up to the top of the tower to replace the big cells so the ladder had been removed to discourage vandals. No doubt, when it was necessary to access the light itself for maintenance, the Bo’sun’s Mates would rig a temporary one.

But there had been trouble. It was soon clear that someone had gone to a lot of trouble to put Anclote Light out of service. We could see immediately that it had been thoroughly and systematically sabotaged and it hadn’t been mere vandals–these people had come prepared. Bolt cutters had been used to remove the locks to the chain-link fence surrounding the structure and that secured the battery case, the switchbox and the upper door to the light itself. The big wet cells had been opened and rolled over and the acid spilled onto the sand, the conduit and cable severed with axes and the switchbox battered into uselessness. Someone must have climbed up the tower supports and forced the door at the top, cut the batteries there loose, and thrown them down to shatter on the concrete slab below. They meant not just to put the light out but to ensure it could not be repaired quickly. Curiously, the delicate lamp and magnificent Fresnel lens had not been damaged. The rest of the day was a somber time for us, we could make no sense of this deliberate act of destruction and we talked on and off about it for hours.

Late that afternoon, a large motor yacht anchored well offshore about a thousand yards south of the island, but we thought nothing of it. At sunset we lit our bonfire and settled down to roast marshmallows. We were still there late that night when we noticed the cruiser being obscured by dark shadows almost totally eclipsing its anchor lights. A quick look through binoculars made clear what was happening. A long procession of sailboats was approaching the yacht, momentarily winking out its lights with their sails as they passed between us. Through the glasses we could see them glowing dimly through the sails as boat after boat sailed past it, starboard side to us, came about, and then scurried south again on the downwind run. The ghostly procession went on all evening; it was a sailboat race and the motor yacht must have been the committee boat, making sure each racer rounded a mark invisible to us.

Of course, a sailboat race! The local skippers would be very familiar with these waters, they knew the huge powerplant smokestack on the mainland with it’s flashing strobes would be easily visible from here and they knew exactly where it was located, on a small peninsula of land clearly marked on the chart. The stack itself, however, was not on the chart, and the out-of-town competitors, although able to see it clearly, would not know just where it was. In those pre-GPS days, they would be expecting to have the lighthouse available to shoot bearings. The local boats, and one in particular, would have a navigational advantage that might just make a difference in a close contest; they would always know exactly where they were, and they would know exactly which one of the bobbing lights out in the dark was their mark.