Category Archives: Equipment

Mise Tales Forty-Seven

Advertisement, Art, Construction, Environment, Equipment, History, Hobbies, Lighthouses, Ornaments, Souvenirs, Weather, , , , , , ,

For an update on what a Mise Tale is then please see Mise Tales One.

As mentioned earlier on the front page of my website, any photos or cartoons, or short bits of information, when it is removed from the front page, will also be included again later in the next next Misc Tales posting. That way you can keep track of it, search for it, or copy it.

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Wind MapOn October 18, 2014, a large storm was hitting the British Columbia, Canada coastline. The photo above shows the winds as a visualization of global weather conditions, forecast by supercomputers, updated every three hours. Click the photo for more recent details. Move around the map with your mouse. Zoom in also. Check out the menu in the lower left corner for more information.

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What Happens If You Break It?

Advertisement, Art, Construction, Equipment, Florida, History, Light, Lighthouses, North America, USA, Worldwide, , ,

Classic Fresnel Lighthouse Lenses   (Youtube)

artflo_15Another benefit of Facebook (FB), if you subscribe to the right channels, is the notification of new webpages. In this case a friend on Sentinelles des Mer (FB) led me to their webpage in Belgium www.sentinelles-des-mers.be again in French in case you clicked on the first link already.

What a beautiful sight (site?) to see! The page is covered with Fresnel lenses – originals and copies, plus they had links to the original webpage Artworks Florida which you will be happy to know is in English.

 Artworks Florida says:

Fresnel Lens Reproduction and Restoration​

Reproduction –
Artworks Florida custom designs and manufactures historic reproduction Fresnel lenses that were used to illuminate lighthouses in the 1800’s

Restoration –
Artworks Florida designs and manufactures custom lens components used in the restoration of original classic Fresnel lenses

Continue reading What Happens If You Break It? →

Refuelling a Lighthouse

Adult Memories, Boats, British Columbia, Canada, Coast Guard, Environment, Equipment, Helicopters, Hovercraft, Icebreakers, Keepers, Lighthouses, On The Job, Workboats, , , , , , , , ,
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photo credit Ron Amundsen

British Columbia (BC) lighthouses mostly have diesel generators unless they are close enough to a large town or city to allow a power cable to run to them.

So how does one refuel a lighthouse as most of them are sitting fairly high above the water line and very distant from a local gas station?

Well, thanks to the lighthouse keepers at Scarlett Point lighthouse and Ivory Island lighthouse for giving me permission to use their photos, I can now show you. 

Scarlet
Scarlett Point lighthouse – Google Maps

Ivan Dubinsky at Scarlett Point lighthouse, north of Port Hardy, BC has been photographing anything that moves and does not move at his lighthouse with his new camera and posting them on Facebook. He now has quite a few followers admiring his photos.

OK, back to the refuelling. There are many ways that I have seen it done. From most to least expensive we have helicopter slinging in fuel drums or bladders, hovercraft carrying fuel in it’s tanks, and Coast Guard ships pumping it into a fuel barge and moving it to shore.

           CG253_Ivan_DubinskyRefuelling Entrance_Ivan_DubinskyCCGS Bartlett_Ivan_Dubinsky Continue reading Refuelling a Lighthouse →

Mise Tales Forty-Five

Anti-Automation, Art, Drawings, Environment, Equipment, Europe, Light, Lighthouse Models, Lighthouses, Tourism, Travel, Visitors, Wildlife,

For an update on what a Mise Tale is then please see Mise Tales One.

As mentioned earlier on the front page of my website, any photos or cartoons, or short bits of information, when it is removed from the front page, will also be included again later in the next next Misc Tales posting. That way you can keep track of it, search for it, or copy it.

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10655367_10204690112723819_5618802589848728890_oWhat do you think of this? Someone shared this photo in Facebook. The artist Richard Honan said . . . 

. . . this particular piece was done with colored pencils. The other medium that i typically work with is oil pastels . . .

No information was give if he sells the artwork. I have written him for more information.

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A very cute story from Patagonia, South America entitled Penguins at the Lighthouse (that is very far south). The lighthouse is on Isla Magdalena, Patagonia. 

 

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Lighthouses Attract Birds!

Environment, Equipment, Fog, Incidents, Information, Light, Lighthouses, United Kingdom, Weather, Wildlife, Worldwide, , , ,
lighthouse-web
Bardsey Island lighthouse, UK

It sounds impossible, but the very bright light emanating from a lighthouse at night attracts  birds. This happens on the most remote of lighthouses, some far out at sea.

What interest would birds have in a lighthouse?

Well sometimes it is because the light beacon attracts numerous insects which the birds feed upon. In other cases birds fly to the lighthouse lamp because it is the only attraction in their universe, just like a boat will navigate towards the safety of a lighthouse. Continue reading Lighthouses Attract Birds! →

Trial Island Lighthouse

Anti-Automation, British Columbia, Canada, Communication, Environment, Equipment, Hobbies, Keepers, Lighthouses, North America, Recreation, , , ,

A lot of people who visit Victoria, British Columbia (on the southern tip of Vancouver Island) never get to see Trial Island lighthouse as it is not visible from the town core. One must travel to the Oak Bay waterfront to see the lighthouse.

Trial Island_Doug Clement
Photo credits – © 2013 Doug Clement Photography

 

Photo credits - © 2013 Doug Clement Photography
Photo credits – © 2013 Doug Clement Photography

Although it is only about half a mile from Oak Bay, most people see only the radio station antennas of BC TV on a black rock be it day or night.

An interesting article on the web is Trial Island Lighthouse & VE7DQA – describing the life of a Ham Radio operator living and working there.

Trial Island is NOT an isolated station compared to West Coast Vancouver Island lightstations like Carmanah Point, Pachena Point and Cape Beale, but it is an interesting place to work.

Google Interactive Map showing the location of Trial Island.

A Lighthouse For Aircraft

Automation, Construction, Equipment, Europe, Foreign, France, History, Information, Lighthouses, Night Time, Tourism, Travel, Visitors, , ,
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Photo courtesy of Bretagne Phare St-Mathieu Facebook page

What a beautiful lens! What a unique story.

On Facebook the United States Lighthouse Society page shared a photo of the Brittany (Bretagne), France St. Mathieu lighthouse lens. It was borrowed from the  Bretagne Phare St-Mathieu Facebook page.

In French the page says:

La saison démarre bien, j’ai déjà accueillit beaucoup de monde. Et qui dit nouvelle saison , dit “Nuit du Phare”. La première nuit de cette année aura lieu lundi 5 mai à partir de 21h30. Toutes les 1/2h. un groupe de 20 personnes pourra venir admirer la mer d’Iroise et ses phares à partir du chemin de ronde. Visite uniquement sur réservation au 0298890017 ou 0686310347.

which roughly translates (with the help of Google Translate) into: Continue reading A Lighthouse For Aircraft →

Light at the End of the World

Adult Memories, Automation, Beachcombing, British Columbia, Canada, Communication, Construction, Equipment, Foghorns, Groceries & Mail, Haida Gwaii, History, Keepers, Light, Lighthouses, Mysteries, On The Job, Operators, Radio, Recreation, Reprint, Ships, Stories, Storms, Transportation, Wildlife,

Light at the End of the World
Three Months on Cape St. James, 1941

by Hallvard Dahlie (orig from Raincoast 18, 1998) with notes from Jim Derham-Reid (last keeper on Cape St. James before automation)

Image1A strange interlude in my brief seafaring life took place in the fall of 1941, when I signed on as assistant lighthouse keeper at Cape St. James, a light perched on top of a three-hundred-foot rock at the very southern tip of the Queen Charlotte Islands. I had quit school earlier that year, at the age of sixteen, and found a job on the CGS Alberni, a lighthouse tender operating out of Prince Rupert. But when she had to go into dry dock at the beginning of September for a new wartime grey paint job and a bit of refurbishing, I chose to take a stint out at the lighthouse rather than scrape barnacles and paint for three months. Continue reading Light at the End of the World →

Once Upon a Foggy Night . . .

Adult Memories, Audio, Boats, British Columbia, Canada, Equipment, Fishboats, Fishing, Foghorns, History, Information, Lighthouses, North America, On The Job, Videos, , , ,
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There is a boat out there . . . click the button below . . .

Imagine you are a lighthouse keeper on the graveyard shift on a foggy night. All you hear are the diesel engines running, the foghorn blowing at intervals. As you stare out into the gloomy mist you hear this sound. It is a boat, but what kind of boat? What kind of motor?

Many old-timers will recognize it as the sound of a classic make and break Easthope 2-stroke marine gasoline engine on idle. It probably belonged to a fisherman waiting out the fog so he could see where he was going. It was a sound that carried through the fog just like the foghorn.

To hear it again brings back many memories. If you wish to see the fishboat that housed this engine take a look at this Youtube page.

EasthopeMarineSign

 

 

 

Learning From Nature – Improving LEDs

Automation, Construction, Environment, Equipment, Information, Light, Lighthouses, , , , , , , , ,

This is NOT a religious rant so please bear with me.

FireflyTwo Jehovah’s Witnesses dropped by the other day and left after a short time, leaving me with copies of their two publications – Awake! and The Watchtower.

As I deposited them on the kitchen table I noticed on the back page of the February 2014 issue of Awake! a story entitled The Lantern of the Photuris Firefly.

Well naturally the word lantern caught my eye plus the fact that fireflies are prevalent in the Philippines where I am living right now.

Interesting story, and very interesting how scientists adapted it to modern day Light Emitting Diode (LED) technology which is used in your el-cheapo flashlights up to modern high-intensity LEDs for beacons and marker lamps of all sorts used in lighthouses and light beacons. Continue reading Learning From Nature – Improving LEDs →