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Volunteers wanted: Lighthouse keepers
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LIGHTHOUSE keepers have long figured in poetry, songs and stories — rather romantic, lonely figures living on a windy cliff above crashing waves. They tend a great ships’ beacon, illuminated in the old days by oil lamps and powered by clockwork mechanisms.
Often, it was the lighthouse keeper who sounded the alarm when a sailing ship foundered.
Because of electricity and automation, today’s lighthouses practically run themselves and no one needs to trim the wicks of oil lamps, but there still are lighthouse keepers and maintenance never ends.
For some people, and would-be poets, the job has enduring appeal.
The Wenzhou Aids to Navigation Department in Wenzhou City, Zhejiang Province, has tapped into that appeal, recently recruiting two volunteer keepers for 10-day stretches, assisted by veteran watchmen. Two more will be taken on and applications remain open.
Recruitment opened in February and the response has been overwhelming. More than 300 people — ranging in age from 20 to 58 — applied for the first two positions at the Beiji Hill Lighthouse on Beiji Island in Rui’an City.
Wenzhou is the first among China’s 18 Aids to Navigation Departments to take on volunteers.
The first two men just concluded their island stints yesterday. They are 50-year-old Feng Xicun, deputy secretary of a neighborhood committee, and 50-year-old entrepreneur Lin Jian. Both are from Wenzhou.
“It was like a new world opened for me and in the 10 days I had time to pause and reflect a while about myself,” Lin tells Shanghai Daily. He also checked the battery, removed bird droppings and learned about navigation guides. But it was lonely.
Next Wednesday, the next two volunteers step up to two weeks of seclusion — an active-duty policeman from Wenzhou and an office worker from a shipping company in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province.
“Few people know about the culture of aids to navigation, how hard the work is and how lonely our lighthouse keepers are, spending years to light up the routes for ships,” says the program’s initiator Zheng Jieying, from the Wenzhou Aids to Navigation Department. “We hope that through this volunteer work, more people can learn about the culture and dedication of watchers.”
It’s not just about sitting around and watching the sea. Volunteers must know their way around solar-powered diesel generators, have previous volunteer experience and be able to endure isolation for at least 10 days. They work with full-time lighthouse keepers.
They live inside the lighthouse and have free WiFi, but they must cook or buy their own meals.
They receive training and get personal injury insurance.
The main job is basic maintenance — checking every two hours to ensure the light is on, the battery is working, the electrical connections are tight. They clean solar panels every day and remove bird droppings. They also record the statistics sent by passing vessels’ automatic identification systems.
“We won’t assign them to dangerous jobs, of course. Their safety is guaranteed,” Zheng says.
Once the volunteers-wanted advertisement was released, applications flooded in.
“It was far beyond our expectations,” Zheng says. “We never thought so many people were so crazy about being a lighthouse keeper.”
Of the first 300 applicants, there are civil servants, retired soldiers, university students and entrepreneurs from around China,
Beiji Island is 37km from the mainland, linked with a cargo and passenger supply ship that makes the trip every two days. A single journey takes three hours.
China has more than 12,000 lighthouses and beacons, including 5,500 in the East China Sea zone. Around 1,000 are under the Wenzhou Aids to Navigation Department in Zhejiang, a province of many islands and an archipelago.
The Beiji Hill Lighthouse on Beiji Island is the only international lighthouse in the Wenzhou area and it guides domestic and international traffic in and out of the ports of Wenzhou, Aojiang and Feiyun.
The island is around 2 square kilometers. It has around 1,000 villagers and a food market, but no motor vehicles.
Full-time lighthouse keeper Du Zhongliang has been tending the lighthouse for 24 years. “I’ve become accustomed to the lonely life and I seldom talk except when I have to go food shopping,” says the 43-year-old watcher. He has a mobile phone and computer that he uses only occasionally.
“Maybe because of the working environment, I’m not comfortable each time I go back to town,” he says.
The daily routine is rigid. He rises at 5:30am and checks if the automated light is on — it goes out automatically during daylight.
After recording passing vessels automated identification statistics, he raises the national flag at 6am.
At 7am, he goes down the hill to buy food, the only time he communicates with other people. The rest of the day is spent on maintenance and recording the statistics of many passing ships.
“I was born into a fishermen’s family, so I have a special attachment to the lighthouse,” Du says. “Though boring and lonely, it’s my niche in life.”
The lighthouse work is carried out by five men working in shifts, two at a time. Du is the supervisor. A team works 20 days and gets 10 days off.
Now the team has two volunteers.
“It was an experience that I will cherish my entire life,” says volunteer Lin, the entrepreneur.
“Even when I got up late at night to use the toilet, I would check to make sure the light was on because it’s so important for ships,” he says.
His room in the lighthouse is around 15 square meters and equipped with an air-conditioner.
“The biggest problem was fighting loneliness,” Lin tells Shanghai Daily. “I only stayed 10 days and that was OK, but I couldn’t handle a longer stay.”
The full-time keepers and volunteers shared different life and work experiences, which helped pass the time.
If you are interested in the volunteer job, call (0577) 8833-3957 or 8833-3938 for detail.
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