LIGHTHOUSES OF THE WORLD.

The famous candycane lighthouse at Hopetown, Abaco, Bahamas.

welcome aboard.Have any special lighthouses that you are most fond of? Mine is the HEad Harbor Light at the head of Passamaquaoody Bay. Its known as the East Quoddy Head Light , and is a Canadian light that we see on our return from sea into Eastport Me. Its a real welcome sight after a trip out into the Gulf of Maine or out to the Sable Islands.

I am fond of this candy cane lighthouse. Distant relatives from the Bahamas sunk their commercial schooner on a shallow shoal and that was the end of their business. Since the schooner could not be replaced. I am also very partial to Montauk Point lighthouse on eastern end of Long Island. Due to the rich history of the area.
The previous post by someone who posted the lighthouse that was built in the water leaves me shocked at the poundings that these lighthouses built in the ocean experience.

In a couple of weeks, I'll most certainly visit this "lighthouse":

Portbail Feu Postérieur (Église de Notre-Dame), on the Cotentin peninsula in Normandy.

Does this one occult or is it just a strait beam?
Most of the lighthouses have some sort of period so that they can be better located via the GPS maps.

Nearly all lighthouse fires have some kind of variation of the light, characteristic and specific to the particular lighthouse.
That was done so centuries before someone thought of GPS. It's noted on the charts .... and the various sea marks/buoys/lighthouses directories

Same here:

Lighthouse charicteristcs

sorry , I missed the occultation rate (3s/1s). That light must come out of that pigeon hole like a laser.

GPS charts all have the period on/off of all lights that are in ones map package. I have the one for New England and there are thousands of lights and blinking spars from Nova SCotia to Cape Cod, all with some occultation rate thats unique to each light. Many periods are used over and over but only after a significant distance and other lights between the last and the next light with the ame period.

Well, that is and has been exactly the same with 'normal' charts:

That's part of the Weser estuary - 40 years ago, I knew all the lights and characteristics by heart.

Some lights, because they 'want' to different to others, have rather long periods of "silence" (I noticed such mainly in France), which makes it a bit difficult a) to find and b) to make a good bearing, especially when a sail with some speed.


[We had Decca in the 70's .... and as 'last chance' RDF (though I only used the transmitter for listening to music and news ).
However, in the early 70's our boat got antennas for a kind of 'GPS-beta' version - I've always beaten that system with simple terrestic navigation

Do you recall when we had the X/y bullshit provided by LORAN? That was a real PITA.

LORAN ... I was taught at the naval academy, had to use it once (I think) during a training class on a school ship .... and I a couple of LORAN-maps in my set, which I never updated and kept in the lowest drawer under other useless stuff.

$35,000 was provided by Congress in 1853 for establishing a lighthouse near Jupiter inlet, to mark the dangerous shoals lying off that point, and to guide vessels along that coast. The finished cost totaled $60,859.98. Operation started on July 10, 1860.
The lighthouse was to be built atop a hill with an elevation of forty-six feet with a finished height of 108' [That is high for FL.]

During the restoration work in 1999-2000, archaeologists uncovered shells and pottery fragments on the hill near the base of the tower. The artifacts are believed to be remnants of a Native American colony, dating from around 700 AD.

In 1855 a third Seminole War broke out, stopping all construction, but in 1858 the conflict was resolved and construction resumed.
The working lighthouse was again interrupted by the Civil War. In August of 1861, a “band of lawless persons visited the Jupiter Inlet” Lighthouse, and “removed the illuminating apparatus.” It is unclear exactly what was removed, and the light remained dark throughout the the war. The missing parts of the “illuminating apparatus” were recovered in a palmetto hammock near Lake Worth creek by Captain James A. Armour. The lighthouse returned to operation on June 28th, 1866, Captain Armour was appointed an assistant keeper under William Davis.

In the lantern room, where a magnificent first-order Fresnel lens manufactured in Paris by Henry-LePaute was installed. When revolving, the four bulls-eyes in the lens produce the repeating cycle of two flashes followed by a period of darkness.

I can tell you this is a very busy spot.

Causeway to St. Mary's tidal Island, Whitley Bay, England.
Opened 1898.
You can reach the lighthouse between the tides by the causeway.
137 steps up to the lantern and get a good view of the NE coast of England.
The causeway to the island was built in 1929, and rebuilt in 1965/66.
The lamp was lit by paraffin until September 1977 and thereafter automated electricity.
There was no electricity on the island until 1957.
I was lit for the last time in 1984.

In January 1913 the Russian four-masted iron barque the “California” was driven onto the rocks on the south of the island in a sudden storm before she could set her sails.

Efforts were made to get a rescue rocket aboard, but the ship broke up and the rescuers could only save the men who were washed ashore - the captain and seven crewmen.

Eight sailors were drowned, and the captain lay seriously ill in the island cottage for a week after his ordeal. The remains of the ship can still be seen at low tide.

Are those the rocks in the foreground or is that a seawall. WOnder why they didnt put up a spar at the rocks

It is a walkway. Use it at lowtide to get to the lighthouse. That is what is so interesting about this lighthouse I thought.

Just returned from Brittany.

And photographed that 'lighthouse' (plus a couple more):

The Granville lighthouse, aka "Phare et Feu (Le Loup) de Granville" (four white flashes every 15 s) as seen from my room:

And from a bit closer:

Some very neat pictures Walter. Weve been planning a trip to Brittany and then the lowcountries just on our own . Maybe this fall after I get back from some work out west.