SURGEON'S COVE -
Lighthouses provide the perfect backdrop for a ghost story and for Barry Porter of Porterville the Surgeon's Cove lighthouse was the site for this spooky encounter.
Mr. Porter spent around 18 years as a light keeper at the Long Point, Bacalhao (off Herring Neck) and Surgeon's Cove, Exploits Island lighthouses.
During his four years at Bacalhao there was only one occurrence that seemed a bit strange to Mr. Porter. It was just he and his beagle at the lighthouse. Perched 300 feet above sea level with gale force winds, fog and zero visibility it can be a bit unnerving.
One night Mr. Porter was going to check on things when something strange happened. The foghorns worked off compressed air and they had been working steady for two days due to the weather. At this point the fog had cleared but the compressors were still filled with air - the combination of that air pressure and continued use of the equipment for two days created a noise that spooked Mr. Porter into leaving the area where the equipment was located and heading back to the main house which had 10 bedrooms and was over 100-years-old.
"I went back up in the office in the house and said to myself, 'If it's a spook or a ghost, I'm working here and I've got to get over it'," he said. "I went back to see what the heck was going on."
Mr. Porter convinced himself that the noise was the result of the machinery working non-stop for a couple of days and left it at that.
While he could justify for his own piece of mind what happened in Bacalhao, what was to happen at him at Surgeon's Cove didn't come with a rational explanation.
It was March 11, 1992 and Mr. Porter had just transferred to the Surgeon's Cove lighthouse.
Throughout his years as a light keeper, he heard about the spirit Seeme at the Exploits lighthouse.
"It would come up in conversation," he said.
Mr. Porter was to begin his light keeping duties at this lighthouse on March 12 at 2 a.m. As senior light keeper Arch Budgell came off shift at 10 p.m., they had a cup of tea, chitchatted and called it a night. Mr. Budgell went on to his room while Mr. Porter settled in on the couch to catch a nap before his shift began.
Every four hours the light keeper was to check the diesel, generators and main light, record the weather and scan the horizon for vessels in distress.
"I brought out my trusty alarm clock and put it on the floor to get in a few hours sleep," Mr. Porter recalled.
After eight years of the same 2 a.m.-10 a.m. shift Mr. Porter's internal clock was well adjusted to the late night hours and upon waking up he was always ready to set to work.
"I don't know if it's the Old Hag or whatever, I woke up 2:30 or 3 a.m. - I had overslept which I never do," he said. "I was just totally confused and disorientated.
"I looked at my clock and that was stopped and I was panicked - I had slept in on my first shift. I jumped up off the chesterfield and everything was pitch black. The first thing you automatically do is go to the window in the shift room to see if any shipping is on the go. It was a beautiful, clear night with a full moon. I looked out and I said, 'Perfect, nobody sinking - I didn't miss anything - all is ok.' I looked in the ships run that looks over across Northern Head and looking out the window you can see the main light, and when I looked up at the main light, the darn light was out. It was black.
"I'm petrified now. My clock stopped and the light is out. My buddy (Mr. Budgell) was sleeping. I didn't want to tell him I overslept and all this went on, so I booted it downstairs, put on my boots and ran out. I had to climb up in the tower and reset the light and throw a few switches and that came back on. So that was good."
Everything else appeared to be fine.
Mr. Porter said he was sort of embarrassed about what happened, but didn't think he had experienced anything unusual. He figured it was just some bad luck. Later that day he told Mr. Budgell about what had happened.
"He had joked, 'That's Seeme up to her old badness'," said Mr. Porter. "I laughed it off and never told a soul about it for months and months because I was half embarrassed about screwing up on my very first shift."
Months later he was talking to another light keeper who had worked at Surgeon's Cove. The man recalled the same thing had happened to him five years earlier. Like Mr. Porter it had occurred on his first shift and his clock stopped and the main light went out. If that wasn't coincidence enough, a third light keeper who had worked at Surgeon's Cove recounted the same experience.
"Whether it's a ghost I cannot explain it, but it happened to me and these other guys to," said Mr. Porter. "It seemed like a fluke to me that this had happened to me on my first shift, but when I heard it had happened to at least two other light keepers it was too much to be just a coincidence. It's one of the mysteries of Surgeon's Cove Head.
"The way the light keepers talk about it is if she is a ghost, she is a good ghost. Keep on the good side of her."
Mr. Porter asked Richard Wells of Exploits what the story was related to Seeme. Apparently Seeme's name was either Livie or Lavita Seymour (nee Ball). While the year is not certain, she had married a Seymour. Her husband passed away and she stayed with Gus and Ruby Jefferies who looked after her in her later years. Mr. Jefferies was the lighthouse keeper at Surgeon's Cove and they all lived in the residence there. Mr. Jefferies youngest daughter couldn't pronounce Seymour, so she said Seeme. It seems that Mrs. Seymour had passed away in her bedroom one New Year's Eve. This is the same room Mr. Porter slept in for years while working at the lighthouse.
While the story of his first shift is one Mr. Porter will carry with him all his years, no other strange occurrences happened during the next 10 or so years that he worked at the lighthouse before it became automated.
Barry Porter in front of the Surgeon's Cove lighthouse where a number of lighthouse keepers have experienced similar strange occurrences.
.jpg)
.jpg)
