By CRAIG GROSHART for The Beachcomber
Capt. Joe Wubbold isn’t one to toot his own horn.
But a new foghorn? Well, that’s a different story.
Wubbold showed off the “new” Port Robinson foghorn at its official inauguration last Sunday at the Low Tide Celebration. Adults and children responded by lining up throughout the day to climb the 36 stairs to the top of the 40-foot lighthouse and sound the foghorn with the pull of a rope.
The deep, full-throated sound, created using compressed gas, gave visitors a sense of “the way it was” 100 years ago when the Point Robinson lighthouse was completed, said Wubbold, a former Coast Guard captain and president of the Keepers of Point Robinson.
The current foghorn, a plastic, mushroom-shaped device, is automated and electrically operated and sounds more like a large truck. It was installed in 1979 and will continue to be used.
The new foghorn comes from a Navy ship being decommissioned and was purchased at auction by Kevin Britz, general manager of Olympic Instruments. Britz gifted the horn to Wubbold and the Keepers of Point Robinson.
“His gift includes a compressor and tank, so that we can have the horn ready for action for tour days and special events,” Wubbold noted.
The foghorn on display Aug. 2 is a replacement — somewhat — for two solid brass foghorns stolen in 2012 and likely sold for scrap. The theft was “an insult to all the people who live on the magical isle of Vashon,” Wubbold said at the time.
The replacement foghorn will be welded to its mounting to deter any future theft attempt, Wubbold and Britz said.
Wubbold noted that some may ask what is the point of trying to recreate a sound?
“It is the same point that motivates us to preserve the lighthouse itself,” he said.
The Coast Guard, which celebrated its 225th birthday on Aug. 4, owns the Point Robinson property, which includes the lighthouse. The Coast Guard “takes care of the part of the property that makes it a working lighthouse,” Wubbold said, “and the Keepers of Point Robinson and the Vashon Park District take care of the rest.”
Part of the agreement between Parks and the Coast Guard is that the property will be maintained as it was when it was a Coast Guard station.
“We are not there yet, but we will get there,” Wubbold said. “And being able to take you back to not only the sight of the light with its original fifth order Fresnel lens, but also to the sound of the time is part of that effort.”
The scores of people trekking up and down the lighthouse and sounding the horn seemed to agree.
