After my comment in Misc Tales Twenty-Eight about a movie with a lighthouse reference in it, I wondered aloud “How many more media sources have lighthouses in them?”
Well, off to Google and I started looking. There are many. I am going to list them by date, and if you know of more, please let me know.
As you will see, not much of the media uses a real lighthouse – mostly movie props.
When I wrote the story Message in a Bottle I was just using what information I had on hand. The last quotation in the story was from a news source on the British Columbia (BC) coast where a Tofino, BC man found a one hundred and seven (107) year old message in a bottle.
I wanted to keep that story updated but the local media seemed to have lost track of the story as the man wants to donate?/sell? the bottle to a museum without opening the bottle.
While Googling the story of the Tofino man I found the news video of his find on Youtube . . .
The hijack of a ship on the British Columbia (BC) coast is a rare possibility, but with all the controversy over oil spills and destruction of coastal rain forests, the possibility is still there for terrorists or others to hijack a ship on the BC coast and hold the government for ransom.
In the rest of the world, piracy, or hijacking of a ship, is not unknown and shipping companies have had to find many ways to keep their ships safe. Speed is one method, but a fully-loaded freighter does not go very fast.
Today, October 17, 2013, a new website for me, Marine Insight, mentioned:
Infographics: Anti-Piracy Weapons Used on Ships
I know this website is about lighthouses, but I do not plan these things! After posting the story on FLIP (Floating Instrument Platform) doing oceanographic research I was alerted to this story on the World’s Ugliest Ship which also does research of sorts. It is too interesting to ignore. Hey, it’s also red and white like the Canadian Coast Guard ships!
A seismic vessel, the Ramform Titan, has sometimes been dubbed “the world’s ugliest ship” as it has a 70 meter wide stern, making it one of the widest boats in the world. It is owned by Norway’s Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS). – more
Launch of the Ramform Titan from the Mitsubishi shipyard in Nagasaki, Japan (below):
[private]
The ship was launched on April 26 from the Mitsubishi shipyard in Nagasaki, Japan (see video at the end of this article).
The giant oil-services vessel has docked in Bergen, Norway for the first time on Saturday morning and will remain in port until the weekend, when it sails off to the South Atlantic to shoot seismic in the Falkland Islands.
The ship’s captain, Cato Grasdal told Bergens Tidende (in Norwegian), “The ship has tremendous power and is therefore okay to manoeuvre.”
“The most unusual thing is that she is so short compared to the width, which makes her difficult to get onto the pier.”
On the Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) website a statement reads: “The new Ramform Titan Class puts PGS further ahead as the leader in safe, productive and efficient 3D seismic acquisition.”
The boat’s wide stern is designed to drag up to 24 seismic cables, capable of shooting seismic over a 12 km² area. The boat is powered by the ship’s own on-board 18 megawatt power station.
The vessel provides an enhancement of many established features, all incorporated for one single purpose – “to collect maximum amounts of seismic data: quickly, safely and reliably.”
As can be seen in the videos, on board there is comfortable space for an 80-man crew, and offers them a 225m² sports arena, a swimming pool, sauna, fitness room, 3 television lounges and an auditorium. [/private]
When I wrote the story A Wolf At McInnes I never really explained how the wolf got on to McInnes Island, so today I am going to combine two stories into one. Firstly, the wolf swam from nearby Price Island over two (2) kilometers away, probably island hopping to catch its breath. Pictured below and in the album are photos of wolves swimming taken by photographer Leanne Reandy, a staff member of Spirit Bear Adventures, on a trip back to Klemtu from Bella Bella, BC.
[nggallery id=78] Continue reading Wildlife and Spirit Bear Adventures
Can you imagine a lighthouse being used as an aeronautical beacon? Well there is one. It is in the United States at Boston’s Logan Airport and it uses the Boston Lighthouse as a visual marker for Visual Flight Rule (VFR) landings. See the copy of the aeronautical chart below:
In my articles A Lighthouse at Night and Mise Tales Twenty-Four I mentioned how brilliant the meteor showers were in a lighthouse environment because of lack of light pollution. Continue reading Photographing a Meteor Shower
What do you think a lighthouse keeper would do if he spotted this floating on the ocean in front of his lighthouse? My first reaction would be to run and call for help!
This article came from the Military Photography website on Facebook with credit to Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
Launched in 1962, the bizarre research vessel Flip (Floating Instrument Platform) can go from a horizontal to vertical position while staying afloat and stable in heavy seas – even in 80-foot waves. That allows it to perform oceanographic research measurements with great accuracy. Inside the crew areas is a strange Escher-like world of doors in floors, portholes in ceilings, and tables bolted to walls. . . more
[su_youtube url=”http://youtu.be/3hYafJIr1B4″ width=”460″ height=”360″]
Later I was thinking it is too bad that this technology was not available for the Canadian weather ships that used to be off our Canadian coasts. They could have operated nicely with a ship that only rose three (3) inches in eighty (80) foot waves!
More information and links on this Wikipedia article.
The following is a direct copy from the Wikipedia article on lighthouses. It is very comprehensive, and may help you understand why we had lighthouses, and why we still need them – because modern unmanned technology fails!
I have left all the webpage links and EDIT links intact in case someone has something to contribute to the article. It is a long article, but worth reading. never cease learning!
***************************
The lighthouse of Aveiro, west coast of Portugal
The Roman lighthouse at Dover Castle
A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and used as an aid to navigation for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways.
Lighthouses mark dangerous coastlines, hazardous shoals, reefs, safe entries to harbors, and can also assist in aerial navigation. Once widely used, the number of operational lighthouses has declined due to the expense of maintenance and replacement by modern electronic navigational systems. Continue reading Lighthouse
The photo above is a screen capture of part of the Tar Sands SOS webpage. Click the photo above to go to the webpage and you can track the tar sands tankers on the interactive map, scroll down the webpage and learn more why the tar sands tankers are a bad idea. One thing I learned is that tar sands oil sinks to the ocean bed rather than floating up on the beaches. This lengthens the time the oil can pollute British Columbia waters!
I have seen an oil spill personally – it is not a pretty sight!
