Today is our last day on Tybee Island. I’ll be glad to be home, but it’s hard to leave this place. It’s beautiful, and the people are friendly. There’s a lot of ecological and conservation awareness, and you can’t swing a cat without seeing something being done to raise money benefiting cats who are traumatized from having been swung. Seriously, Beauty + Heart = Tybee.

I need to pack, I need to finish the story I agreed to write to pay my part of the rent, but I also NEED to go back to the beach and enjoy my last day here.

This is a picture of the Tybee Lighthouse. It’s a real working lighthouse. We got there after hours, and waylaid one of the docents on her way to a Christmas party. She very kindly (this is Tybee Island) stopped and told us that the lighthouse belongs to the Tybee Island Historical Society, but the light belongs to the Coast Guard, who maintain the light.

The docent said that, in these days of electronic navigation, lighthouses aren’t as essential as they used to be, but they’re still kept in working order. Back in the day when the light was made by coal oil, there were three keepers who worked four-hour shifts, carrying oil up the steps and keeping the light in good working order. The keepers’ houses still surround the light; Tybee has the only complete cluster of original buildings still extant.

She told us that every lighthouse has its own light style: Stationary or flashing, and the rate of flash and pattern of flash identifies which lighthouse it is. If you know your stuff, you can’t be coming into Tybee and think you’re coming into Cape Hatteras. So we learned something in spite of ourselves. And, no, we were not disappointed that we couldn’t climb to the top of this honkin’ tall building.

So we’ll be on the road tomorrow. I have a Sunday post set up to go and, just in case I sleep through Monday, a Monday post set up, as well.

WRITING PROMPT: What is your main character’s lighthouse?

MA