She's Kept the Same Lighthouse Lit for 31 Years
Meet the keeper who turned a lonely post into the steadiest job on the coast.
By Tomas Reyes · Staff writer
Automation was supposed to end her job in 1997. It did not, because the headland's weather station kept failing and somebody had to be there anyway.
Marguerite Baye has climbed the same 127 steps most days for thirty-one years. She has logged every storm, rescued two kayakers, and, by her own count, made tea for about 4,000 visitors.
"People think it's lonely," she says. "It's the least lonely place I know. Everyone who comes up those stairs wants to talk."
She has begun training a successor, a former merchant sailor named Ousmane. The handover plan is four years long. "You can teach the machinery in a week," she says. "The weather takes longer."
