Holiday dolphin lights installed on Matlacha Bridge
Saturday morning, Nov. 19, a crew from LCEC arrived on the island to help install the holiday “Dolphin Lights” on the Matlacha Bridge.
“This is the third year in a row that we’ve managed to get these lights up,” Mike Gordon said. “The original dolphin lights were put up by Peg McTee and a couple of other women from Matlacha. After a few years the lights began to age and kept tripping the breakers on the bridge. Of course, LCEC couldn’t have that and had to put a stop to them going up.”
New lights were then created.
“Bob McKnight and Gary Walker figured out a way to make the dolphin lights by using rope-lights,” he continued. “They completely refurbished them and once again they went up. Then they disappeared for a year. Eventually I found them and these last few years several of us got together to get them up once again.
“They needed to be sandblasted and repainted with Rust-O-Leum. Then we rewired the five dolphins and contacted LCEC. LCEC was so cooperative and the guys were awesome,” Gordon said. “And here they are with their bucket trucks. One thing about this little island, once the ball gets rolling everybody jumps on board to help out.
“This year we are placing canisters around the islands to raise some money to refurbish these lights for another few years,” Gordon said. “Because of the weather here we have to repaint them before they get too rusty.”
Gordon went on to praise all the others who helped with the project.
“You know no one person gets anything done by himself,” Gordon added. “In addition to me there was Jim Young, Bill Stoelker and John Barone and the entire operation was supervised by Bill McKee.”