Tower surfing

Rob’s journal

when: July 14, 2005 where: Marion Station, Maryland, USA what: Tower Surfing

© Rob Crimmins, Felton, Delaware, USA

This week we installed three antennas on a 340’ foot, free standing tower in Marion Station, MD, behind an elementary school.

Marion Station is a town of fewer that two-thousand residents at the extreme southern end of Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Pocomoke Sound is a few miles south and Tangier Sound is to the west and north. It’s a completely unpretentious place. The homes are plain and generally pleasing although a few are well worn. Like the entire Eastern Shore the terrain is utterly flat, but there is more forest here than elsewhere. It’s pretty country.

In 1964, when I was seven, our family went to the World’s Fair in New York. Going to New York City was an adventure in itself but that was just one of many aspects of that trip I still bring to mind when I want to enjoy a pleasant memory.

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel opened that year. Crossing the Bay and being in a car and out of sight of land was the first unforgettable part of the trip. The Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay was the next. Dad timed the trip so that we crossed the Bay at sunset and traveled up Rt. 13 through Virginia, Maryland and Delaware at night. The southern end of the Eastern Shore is still sparsely populated compared to most other parts of the Mid-Atlantic but then it was sparsely populated compared to almost anywhere. We lived in Hampton, Virginia, which is a pretty big town, so the Eastern Shore seemed quite desolate. I’ve not explored the area since then.

The first thing I did was to carry the end of the lifting line and a block to within a few feet of the top of the tower to lift the antennae and its supports and then the cables that will feed and draw from them. They’re part of the new 800 Mhz system Somerset County will use for their emergency communications.

At the bottom the tower seemed substantial. It had three, eight inch diameter legs about twenty-five feet apart. I’d only been working as a tower climber for a few weeks and as I climbed it occurred to me that this would be my first chance to stand on the top of a tower.

The leg sections are joined by flanges every twenty feet and at every third section their diameter decreased. At the top they’re only an inch-and-a-half thick, small enough that my middle finger and thumb touched when I held the climbing leg. When the very top was at eye level I stopped, gripped the climbing leg, rocked from side to side and found the tower to be flexible. It was so springy I got the feeling that if tried I could make it sway back and forth a foot and probably even two or three feet. Another thing that surprised me was the tower’s dimensions at the top. From the ground it looked like

the surface at the top, on which the obstruction light and strobe sat, was much larger than it is. The plate the lights were on was no bigger than an average dining room table.

It’s an unsettling position. On all my previous climbs I had always had the tower in front of me to hold onto and it filled my field of vision. When I got to the point at which the top of this tower was at waist height I was in a different realm and fear overcame me. Both of my safety lanyards were hooked in so I was safe but it didn’t feel like it. Pausing to collect myself helped some but when I turned to sit on the top of the tower and face the open sky I felt like something had sucked the air from my lungs. Seated and out in space with nothing between me and the horizon was terrifying. I looked at my hands gripping the tower and immediately felt the tower moving. Todd, my climbing partner, was halfway down holding the weight of the line that I was carrying. His efforts and the light breeze were causing the tower to sway. My new perspective and moving seat fueled what I knew to be an irrational fear that I couldn’t overcome.

I could have just stepped onto the climbing leg and moved down a few feet to get back to the familiar place and stop the fear but I didn’t. I might not have the chance again. I might not even keep the job. Add to that the fact that the personal, lonely challenges are the best, it became imperative to not only stay there but to stand up.

The lanyards are about five feet long with big hooks on the end. They’re connected to the back of the harness, between the shoulder blades, and they have closures that prevent them from accidentally falling off whatever you hook them too. I generally use both because why not?

I got on my knees and then to one foot and a knee, then to both feet. I straightened up gradually and the closer I got to my full height, the more the tower felt like it was made of rubber. Todd and the wind had their combined affects but now my own efforts were causing the darn thing to rock even more, despite trying to be still. I knew I was safe and that knowledge prevented complete panic but facts and reason weren’t enough to overcome this particular form of fear.

As the surface under my feet continued to shift the fear only got worse. On the way up I pictured raising my arms over my head but doing so or even folding them across my chest seemed impossible. Instead I held them in front of me with my hands open and waving as if I was on a tight rope. I tried to be still but with the tower moving under me it wasn’t possible. I simply couldn’t assume the posture I had imagined as I making the climb. Within seconds it became vey clear I wasn’t in the place I pictured. It was so different in fact that I didn’t just give up and sit down I laid down on my stomach in the vulture pooh. It smelled bad which added to my shame but I didn’t mind much.

Of course, giving in to fear completely wasn’t an option. I had to get myself out of this situation so I inched back to where I came from and lowered myself onto the climbing leg until the tower once again filled my vision. Relief came instantly and in a manner reminiscent of another descent.

When we left the dock at West Palm Beach, Florida for our open-water, certification dive it was windy and the surface was choppy. Within minutes I was sick. By the time we got to the dive site, in sixty feet of water, I was miserable.

Getting ready, waiting for the others to prepare and listening to the final instructions was awful. I didn’t know it would happen but the instant I got in the water the nausea subsided. With my bodily fluids in sync with the ocean all was well.

In fact if I had been six-years-old and found my mother after being lost or been immersed in a hot bath after a day in the snow the relief could not have been as complete or more immediate.

Being in the familiar position on the tower was no less of a relief and a lot funnier. I laughed out loud at what had just happened and before I got to the ground the thought of what I’d done and how it played out got to me several more times. Todd asked me what was so funny and I told him if he was the one to recover the block at the end of the job he should stand atop the tower and he would know. He did go up there a few days later but he didn’t stand. He’s not as playful as me.

I told Judi and Pat about it at supper so the dining room table analogy was effective. Both of them saw themselves at thirty-five stories standing on the table. The look in their eyes as they imagined the scene made me laugh about it again.