chesapeake tower

the last light of our cruise was to the chesapeake tower. there are three "texas towers" like this out in the open atlantic ocean, and this is the first we've seen, which is prett-y exciting. 

 this entrance to the chesapeake bay was marked by lightships for about 35 years, until the chesapeake tower was built and took over. this pic (from lighthouse friends) is of the lightship finally leaving after the completion of the tower. passing the baton. :)

 

 she's 14.5 miles east north east of the cape henry lights.

 this tower is now used for weather research and is still owned by the coast guard. but the frying pan shoal tower, which is identical to this guy, is now a fully functioning b&b. you can either take a helicopter out there, or take a boat, and walk up stairs just like these ones under the chesapeake tower. yikes!

 it was just surreal to be out there looking at this beauty up close! 

we can't wait to spend a night aboard this ladies sister!

 goodbye, beautiful lady! stay strong out there by yourself!

we had so much fun mingling with the other lighthousers aboard this cruise. one man we talked to thought it was just amazing that we had found each other, two born lighthouse lovers. he just kept going on and on about how lucky we were and told us to continue pursuing our goals. then we met james, who had all of his lighthouse stamps neatly laid out in books. it was an amazing collection of hundreds of stamps. we've been on the "visit all the lighthouses we can and get one stamp or picture from each" plan. but james taught us that lighthouses often have many different stamps, you just gotta dig a little, and that every stamp you get in your passport book counts towards completing additional passports, and then you get patches for each completed book. 

it's all very exciting and new. we only wish we had known about this sooner, because just think of all those lights we've missed out on stamps for! we will survive. aaand, we each bought our second passport books while on this cruise! eeeeee, exciting!