"My mother and younger brother’s ashes are there. Someday mine will be there. I’ll be sprinkled out there for fish food and enjoy every minute of it."
Fittingly, Rob Dixon was dockside on the waters of the Florida Keys when he learned that he and others had a shot at restoring a piece of maritime history.
That’s the Alligator Reef Lighthouse, which was first lit in 1873 and sits four miles off Islamorada in the Upper Keys.
Dixon, a longtime charter boat captain in Islamorada who still runs boats, checked his email to find a message from the U.S. Department of the Interior. It said the federal government was handing over ownership of the lighthouse to the nonprofit he helps run.
“Goosebumps, just goosebumps,” said Dixon, 60, president of the Friends of the Pool, Inc., which announced the acquisition this week. “I couldn’t believe it.”
Read more at the Miami Herald