This article appeared in the Business Mirror (Philippines). Take a look at why they are refurbishing old lighthouses:
Lighthouses serve as aids to navigation, working as visual guides to ports and harbors especially for fishermen and even for larger types of vessels already equipped with global positioning system.
Any more questions why Canada’s lighthouses cannot be retained?
The amount in the title is 246 million Philippine Pesos (PHP) or about $5,904,000 Canadian Dollars (CDN).
“The DOTC is inviting providers to participate in the open and transparent bidding process for the P246 million procurement of aids to navigation equipment,” said the agency in a published bid notice. (The amount is 246 million Philippine Pesos (PHP) or about $5,904,000 Canadian Dollars (CDN).)
The government will procure in bulk the lighting and other component of this project to efficiently utilize its funds.
The civil works for the project will be bid out separately.
The DOTC and the PCG will repair and upgrade 194 lighthouses. Lighthouses serve as aids to navigation, working as visual guides to ports and harbors especially for fishermen and even for larger types of vessels already equipped with global positioning system.
In particular, the PCG listed lighthouses in the following areas where repairs and upgrade should be carried out at the soonest time possible. These are the lighthouses in Northern Luzon, National Capital Region, Southern Tagalog, Palawan, Bicol, Western and Eastern Visayas, Southwestern, Northern and Southeastern Mindanao. Continue reading DOTC Opens Bidding for P246-M Lighthouse Repair Project→
After writing the article on Model Lighthouse Working Plans for lawn ornaments or household decorations, I was told of another place in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania called the Lighthouse Man.who offers custom crafted lawn lighthouses – kits and ready-made stucco, stone, wood and plastic lighthouses. Wow, I do not know where to begin! Take a look at some of the beautiful creations in the photo below. Click the photo to take you directly to the page. For others follow the links on the left. Enjoy!
If India can do it, why cannot Canada? India is refurbishing thirteen (13) lighthouses! Canada is demolishing hundreds! Why is India doing it? For tourism! Tourism is not important to Canada?
India is doing this even though they have just installed a new Automatic Identification System (AIS) for most vessels on their coast. Lighthouses are still needed they said.
What happens when most of Canada’s beautiful lighthouses are demolished and the next government in ten years decides they are needed. Build more? Not likely knowing the Canadian government mentality. You will have a light atop a pole. So much for history!
Some of the famous lighthouses in the country are getting a facelift.
The Government plans to develop 13 lighthouses into tourism spots through the private-public-partnership.
IL&FS has prepared a feasibility report on the project which is likely to cost over Rs 300 crore.
The iconic lighthouse on the Marina beach in Chennai and the Mamallapuram lighthouse, are among the famous lighthouses that will get a facelift. The lighthouse on Marina will house a lighthouse museum, said the Union Shipping Minister, G.K. Vasan. Continue reading Reprint – Lighthouses To Get a Facelift→
A very interesting history and a description of present day Triple appears on the Lighthouses of British Columbia webpages under Triple Island. But what about the earlier days before radio, central heating, monthly helicopter transportation and paid vacations?
The light was first manned on January 1st 1921 and has been occupied by families and single men ever since that time despite Nature’s wish to destroy the place and it’s people.
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The photos above were taken summer of 1945 when Joe Osborne was radio operator on Triple for three months along with Gordon and Jean Odlum.
“Quite an experience for a 19 year old,” he said. “I used to enjoy getting out fishing after a ride down the high line with Gordon running the winch using a pair of binoculars to see when to drop the boat. His eyesight was not too good.”
The photo below shows Triple about 1950. The highline is still in place but the buildings and landings are not erected as shown in the 1955 photo below this one.
Triple Island c. 1950 – photo Canadian Dept. of Fisheries & Oceans
Triple Island c. 1955 Photo – Dennis Hull
The photo above was taken about 1955 when lightkeeper Ed Hartt and his family were living there together with an assistant keeper. All those wooden buildings and wharves. The two single guys now on station sometimes find it hard to get along. What happened back then?
See the Hartt family photos from the above era in the album below:
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Now take a look at the next two photos which show the station approximately twenty years later. Where are the docks and outbuildings?
Triple Island c. 1970s Lightkeeper Larry Golden standing at left Photo – Rand Grant Flickr pages.
Triple Island c. 1970s Photo – Rand Grant Flickr pages.
By the 1960s Triple had no more families. Two single men rotating on a twenty-eight day shift from Prince Rupert, BC replaced them. They were transported by helicopter when weather permitted. In the two photos above, note the direction-finding (DF) radio beacon antenna on the roof (now discontinued).
The original helicopter pad was on another one of the Triple Islands separated by a gully which was filled with surging seawater at high tide or in storms. To get to the helicopter pad when you could not walk through the gully the staff rode the cage.
Many people lost their lives in the construction and maintenance of Triple Island. The last was Prince Rupert Coast Guard mechanic Paul Pouliot in February 1978 when he was swept away by a freak wave while walking across the gully to repair the cage.
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Now, the helicopter landing pad has been moved closer to the tower as can be seen in the present day photos below.
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There are many stories of damage to Triple Island light. Things like logs through bathroom windows, light tower windows and other damage from storm and wave-driven projectiles.
The photos below show some of the damage inflicted by a storm in September 2005.
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The duties of the lightkeepers on Triple are now reduced to minor maintenance and painting and the all-important weather reports. The foghorns are silent, the radio direction-finding beacon dismantled, and the main light has been reduced to a flashlight; as someone called it. The lightstation has been designated as a Canadian National Historic Site.
Have you ever wanted to build your own lighthouse for a lawn display, sitting in the house, or maybe on the beach as a decoration, or how about a bird lighthouse? I received a notice about free lighthouse plans. Following the lead I came to a website that asked for US $67 for their free plans. Not really wanting to spend that much money, I started a Google Search. I found this model lighthouse below at U-Bild.com. Not a bad price either.
Lighthouse (Plan #860)
But it does not end there. They have a Lighthouse Value Plans package that gives you three lighthouses to build – Lighthouse Plan #C159. This package includes the plan above Continue reading Model Lighthouse Woodworking Plans→
Earlier this month, we revealed that the Northern Lighthouse Board was selling off three lighthouses near Stonehaven, Lossiemouth and Thurso, with price tags ranging from £75,000 to £270,000 – along with a foghorn at Girdleness, in Aberdeen. All the buildings, once a beacon for sailors and fishermen, would be ideal for those willing to spend some time and money creating an unusual home.
Rua Reidh Lighthouse, on the other hand, is ready to move in to. The keepers’ accommodation, at the foot of the tower, has been run as a successful home and holiday accommodation for years.
This B-listed home sits in a stunning location, on the cliff edge at Melvaig, around 12 miles from Gairloch on the west coast – officially named as the happiest place in the UK last week – and overlooking the Isle of Skye to the south-west, Harris to the west and Lewis to the north. It is for sale at offers over £325,000. Building of the lighthouse was started by David Stevenson, one of the famous family of lighthouse engineers, in 1910. Two years later, it was helping steer boats safely through the seas. Continue reading Reprint – Finders Keepers→
Elaine Graham remains the only resident among the historical buildings at Point Atkinson Lighthouse. Photograph by: NEWS photo, Lisa King
ELAINE Graham was raised in the slums of London, far from the multi-hued green of nature.
“There was nothing on my street when I was growing up,” she recalls. “I had lots of play-friends, loads of kids to play with, but there wasn’t even a geranium on a windowsill.”
Many years later, Graham is now surrounded by 75 hectares of the largest first-growth stand of coastal-elevation trees in the Lower Mainland. Her home is nestled among the remaining structures at the base of Point Atkinson Lighthouse, which stands on a craggy promontory at the edge of Lighthouse Park in West Vancouver.
She has spent half her life here, and is eager to tell the story of her neck of the woods.
Graham moved to the Point Atkinson Lighthouse station with her husband Donald and two young sons in 1980. Donald became the last of the lighthouse keepers at the site (along with senior keeper Gerry Watson) when the lighthouse was automated in 1996.
Do you want to save a lighthouse? Do you like lighthouse Christmas ornaments? This article might appeal to you. It appeals to me because it is another way to raise money to save a lighthouse. If you look on this website, there are many more ideas too.
Reprinted with permission from Tim Croft of The Star
First published July 26, 2012 11:58 AM
Lighthouse ornament
The St. Joseph Historical Society (Port St. Joe, Florida) is encouraging folks to put a touch of lighthouse under the Christmas tree this year.
As part of a fund-raising effort in its quest to save the Cape San Blas Lighthouse from the wrath of Mother Nature, the Historical Society is selling a gorgeous brass-and-silver colored replica of the lighthouse in the form of a Christmas ornament.
Cape Blas lighthouse
Each ornament costs the Historical Society $10 – Cape San Blas Lighthouse is emblazoned across the top-front of the ornament, St Joseph Historical Society on the lower back – to produce.
For an update on what a Mise Tale is then please see Mise Tales One.
LIGHTHOUSE GIN – A BEACON OF HOPE FOR GIN LOVERS EVERYWHERE
I am planning on making a post later on the use of the lighthouse symbol in advertising, but this advertisement for Lighthouse Gin from New Zealand came across my desk and it was too good not to mention.
Nicely designed website, New Zealand product, lots of information, and some delightful recipes for those that like gin.
The source for this link actually came from The Dominion Post website in new Zealand that had a recipe for Gin and Tonic cake. One of the ingredients was this Lighthouse Gin, so I just had to research it.
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This seems to be turning into an advertising Misc Tales post. Today I found this website for Lighthouse FTO Coffee Bright & Light produced by the Chesapeake Bay Roasting Company, USA. At $12.99 US it is not too bad a price.
For the lighthouse collector, there are several more varieties available in different cans, so you will have to drink a lot of coffee to make up the whole collection!
A few days ago I posted an article on the lightkeepers being the eyes and ears of the BC coast. While writing it an incident was brought to my mind of my early days in 1977 on McInnes Island. We arrived on McInnes in August 1977 so this had to have happened in Spring 1978.
Every year on the British Columbia coast the herring start their spawn in early spring. We, being curious lighthouse keepers are always interested in the goings on in the sea, from the arrival of the salmon to the arrival of winter storms. We always had our eyes out for something happening.
Well, one of the things we had been warned about was pollution. One morning I awoke and the ocean around the lighthouse as far away as Price Island, two kilometers away, was a milky white as though lime had been dumped in the ocean. Nowhere could I see blue sea except distantly in front of the lighthouse.
white water – photo Flickr by poecile05
I was astounded! What had happened? I had no idea. Last night everything was normal; today, total chaos!
I phoned Coast Guard Radio in Bull Harbour and reported this accident, not knowing what it was or how to describe it. The operator said he would pass it on to the Coast Guard.
