I Want To Marry A Lighthouse Keeper....

… and keep him company!

Fascinating job opening for a couple who might want to operate a lighthouse/bed-and-breakfast.

Some of the job requirements:

I went to cooking school and have operated high-end catering establishments and multiple small businesses, so I can handle much of the business aspects of the B&B including the meals. And while I have sailed extensively, I don’t have a boating license. Anyone?

I’m having a hard time reconciling the part about enjoying the company of seagulls with the fact that you’re operating a hotel. Five couples staying overnight four nights a week? I’d be the only lighthouse keeper in the country who’d be wishing he could get away from the crowd.

Last week I heard about a lighthouse for sale. The price seemed very reasonable – but the owners would have to be able to put up with the automated fog horn, which sounded every ten seconds.

I doubt that it sounds every ten seconds when it isn’t foggy. But them suckers are loud.

It seemed pretty frequent to me, but that’s what I heard on the radio. Weather conditions weren’t specified.

Well, here in the Bay Area, the frigg’n fog horns have been on constantly since almost February. Coldest, grimmest summer in years…

‘The coldest winter I ever saw was the summer I spent in San Francisco.’
– Attributed to Mark Twain, though he may not have said it. He did write something similar about Paris, though.

Be careful what you wish for… you might go insane.

I cannot imagine anyone wanting to do this-my Dad knew a couple, who ran a B&B-till they got sick of it. It is one thing to serve guests-at least you can get away from time to time-but to be stuck with them, on some remote island, 24/7 ?
THAT would drive me nuts!

I’m wondering if that would actually be worse. I think you could get used to a foghorn going off every ten seconds and eventually stop noticing it. But if it only operated intermittently you’d notice it every time it started up again.

It’d be a great place to be during a zombie apocalypse.

Sounds like an opportunity to make a fortune. Not for the couple doing the work, but whoever is looking to hire them could make out like a bandit.

I think that would depend on the clintelle you would recieve and how much “running around” you would have to do for the guests. It would also seem that someone would have to be a “jack of all trades” to do this job, being a plumber, carpenter, cook, accountant, whatever.

I would make it clear what my responsibities are and what constitiutes an emergency after hours (no power, someone sick or hurt etc.).

I couldn’t take the job because I am not a boat person. I like the ocean, but I don’t care for boats too much. The obnoxious sound of the lighthouse would get me too.

There just aren’t many active lighthouses any more. Radar cheap enough that almost every boat can afford it has made most of them obsolete. And the few remaining active ones are fully automated.

So the only ‘job opportunities’ in this field are cases like this, where it is more a ‘unique’ vacation destination than a working lighthouse.

There are still allot of them on the Great Lakes, this one has brought me home on many boating voyages.

It is isolated, but not remote. Thousands of cars crossing the I580 Richmond-San Rafael bridge can see the lighthouse off to the north. We have often speculated while crossing the bridge on how expensive and how much fun it would be to do a getaway weekend there. We take the bridge several times a year when we go to visit our son who lives in Marin county. Google map. The infamous San Quentin prison is just to the south of the west bridge approach. Thanks for starting the thread Doughie

Another opportunity, which is both shorter and doesn’t involve running a B&B.

Its nice to know that even in this day and age that there are still interesting and dare I say it (I dare, I dare) romantic jobs around.

I wouldn’t mind a stint at it myself but unfortunately totally can’t cook.