Shorelines
Passaconaway Bridge collapse affects Nubble Lighthouse caretaker, too
By Virginia L. Woodwell
Mike Lewis, whose job with York Parks and Recreation has him tending the buildings and grounds at the Nubble Lighthouse twice a week, holds a picture of himself in his boat in the gut between that island and the mainland. Lewis has had to move his boat from Cape Neddick Harbor due to the collapse of the Passaconaway Bridge.
Photo by Virginia L. Woodwell
Retired from a 37-year teaching career, Lewis, 61, now works full-time for the York Parks and Recreation Department, and one part of his jobs is maintaining the buildings and grounds on the Nubble on which the town's famous lighthouse sits.
At this time of year, Lewis, who's the only staff member assigned to this job, usually makes two trips a week out there to mow the lawns, pick up debris and attend to whatever other chores are on that week's to-do list.
To get to and from the island, Lewis uses his own boat, and, until the May floods, he kept it in the Cape Neddick River, tied to a mooring right behind the Cape Neddick Lobster Pound.
The collapse of the Passaconaway Bridge on May 14, however, changed all that. Lewis had to pass under the bridge to get to open ocean and the Nubble. When the bridge first fell, he could still have squeaked by but was not allowed to do so because it was deemed too dangerous.
What he's had to do since, while the old bridge is being demolished and a temporary one is being erected, is haul his boat out of the water, transport it overland to Donnell's Wharf at York Harbor, and relaunch it there for attachment to a temporary mooring off Town Dock #2. His boat is a 20-foot homemade skiff, fiberglass over a wood frame. He used to make the trip to the Nubble in 15 minutes and it now takes between 30 and 45 minutes, depending on seas and weather. The trip is also riskier, since it's over open ocean.
No other options, however, Lewis explained, are available.
While Nubble Light is a short distance from the mainland, the gut between roils with constantly changing currents and tides, and that fact plus the absence of any landing space close by on the mainland that isn't rocks or ledge makes any crossing there much more difficult than it would seem.
Officials have tried to keep a boat on hand at Sohier Park, Lewis said, but with no luck.
"People mess with it," he said, "it gets beat up, and once it was stolen."
There is, however, one advantage to making the trip from York Harbor: Lewis has to concern himself less with tides. To slip under the Passaconaway Bridge, he had only a six-hour window of opportunity each day. That sometimes meant scheduling work trips to the Nubble on weekends, but it also meant that, when Lewis finished what had to be done on the island, he sometimes had time to go fishing or lobstering on his own before he could head home - not a bad life at all for someone with a passion for all things nautical.
"I love being on the water," Lewis said, adding, "I love taking care of Nubble."
Lewis referred to the Nubble without the "the" - as if it were a proper name for a treasured person.
On the island, the work itself is varied but not always easy. It ranges from lawn-mowing to jobs like dock repair, deck-building, cement-step maintenance and housepainting, and it includes tending to the Christmas lights that remain up on the eves and peaks of the house all year long.
"They take a beating," Lewis said of those lights, and the same could be said of all else on that weather-exposed site. Lewis estimated that the town goes through 10 flags there each year.
And some jobs there are especially challenging. From sea level to the house on the Nubble there are 43 steps. Not long ago, Lewis reported, he was in on the task of removing from the house and the island a refrigerator and a freezer that hadn't been used since the Coast Guard automated the lighthouse in 1987.
Although Lewis is the only worker who tends to the island, the island work is hardly his only job. He also tends to Sohier Park, the park at the Harley Mason and the dozen or so gardens at traffic intersections throughout town.
At Sohier Park, he arrives before the tourists at 5 a.m. to empty trash, vacuum up cigarette butts, water all flowers and weed-whack.
"It's hard work," he said, but he calls it "meaningful" because that spot is visited by 1,500 people per day during the summer season.
And, he has a hand in the maintenance of the grounds and of some buildings at the Grant House, Spur Road, Town Hall, Harmon Park, Police Department, library, Old Burial Ground in the Village and the cemetery on South Side Road, Mount Agamenticus and the athletic fields.
And there are several other sides to Lewis, including a high school coach and former history teacher. He has a commercial lobsterman's license, he said, but only sets between 20 and 30 traps between mid-July and early September, when he finishes his trips to the Nubble.
"I lobster just for family and friends," he said, adding, "I love to fish. I do more fishing than anything."
Lewis remains content to have a relatively small, flat-bottomed boat and to keep it in the shallow Cape Neddick River.
"I don't mind the restrictions of the tide," he said, "I like the people, and nothing changes over there…"
Nothing, that is, except a bridge collapses once in a while.
