legends · 4 min read ·
Keeper's Log, Skerry Light
A lighthouse keeper's log records a second flash from the sea, a fraction behind his own.
**Skerry Light · Keeper's Daily Log · Keeper: J. Wardle**
*Light characteristic: white, one flash every 15 seconds. Visibility 18 nautical miles.*
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**1 March.** Wind SW force 4. Sea moderate. Light lit at dusk, 18:02. Oil reservoir 74%. Lens cleaned. Checked the fog signal. All normal.
**2 March.** Wind SW force 5, gusting 6. Rain from 02:00. Light lit 18:05. Dropped a brass nut into the mechanism and lost forty minutes finding it. The mechanism is old. The lamp was blown twice this week. I've replaced the mantle.
**3 March.** Wind W force 3. Light lit 18:03. Clear sky. Sent the morning signal to the mainland, all well.
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**4 March.** Wind W force 3. Light lit 18:03. Noticed the flash is a second too slow. Timed it by the clock on the wall. Fifteen seconds exactly, then a sixteenth. Adjusted the clockwork. It returned to time by midnight.
**5 March.** Light lit 18:04. The sea is calm. Seals on the north rock, eleven of them, hauled out, all facing the lamp. I've never seen them do that.
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**6 March.** Light lit 18:04. At 02:15 I went up to the gallery to check the lens. The flash came round and I saw a second flash, behind it, from the sea. It was the same colour, the same interval, but a fraction after mine, as if a light on the water were keeping time with the lighthouse. I watched it for an hour. I wrote the bearing down: 214 degrees. There's nothing on that bearing but open sea.
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**Relief crew report (Ardhu Ferry, delivered 7 March)**
Keeper J. Wardle in good health. Fuel and provisions adequate. Keeper asked us to remind the mainland office that the light's second flash is not a fault and should not be reported.
*Crew observation: keeper seemed cheerful. He asked two questions during the handover. The first was whether the fog signal could be silenced in clear weather. The second was whether anyone else on the crew had seen a boat off the rocks at night.*
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**Keeper's log, 9 March.** Light lit 18:02. The second flash has moved closer. Bearing 209. Still no boat. Last night I heard a sound from the lower room, a slow knocking, like someone tapping a glass with a spoon, in time with the flash. I went down and found the storeroom door open. The kettle was on the stove, lit, though I hadn't lit it.
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**Keeper's log, 11 March.** Light lit 18:01. I haven't slept properly. The second flash is so bright now it lights the inside of the lens. I can see figures in the glass, standing on the rock below, all facing the tower. They don't move between flashes. They face the lamp as it turns.
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**Northern Lights Board inspection record (inspector R. Askew, 14 March)**
Light inspected. Lens clean, mechanism in good order, clockwork running to time. Keeper's log is complete and accurate, with the exception of the entries from 6 March onward.
Inspector's note: the entries from 6 March onward are written in a steady hand, very small and even, in the same ink. They describe the second flash, which the keeper says is coming from a point 14 miles out, where there is no light recorded. They describe the seals, the kettle, the knocking, the figures on the rock. The last entry is dated 14 March, 18:02.
I was unable to find the keeper. He was not in the lamp room, the store, or the lower gallery. The lamp was lit at dusk. The log says so.
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**Final entry, Skerry Light log (dated 15 March, in the same hand)**
Light lit 18:02. Visibility excellent. Sea flat.
Two lights now, out on the water, one a fraction behind the other. They keep perfect time. I've stopped trying to match them. The keeper's job, I think, is to show the way in, not to decide where the boat should go.
The lamp's been burning all night. I haven't needed to climb to the gallery. I can see it fine from the kitchen, through the window, the light sweeping across the room every fifteen seconds. Every time it passes over my chair, I feel a little lighter, and a little less like I should go out to the rock to meet whoever is coming in.