Foghorns and the Changing Coastal Soundscape
Technology and politics are changing the tune of the maritime chorus
April 20, 2012 | 3:46 PM | By Craig Miller and with thanks to Climate Watch
Read the full text version of this story at KQED’s QUEST site. (more photos – retlkpr)
East Brother Island, with the 19th-century lighthouse on the left and fog signal building on the right. Continue reading Foghorns and the Changing Coastal Soundscape
A new book has been released about the adventures of a lighthouse family on an Australian lighthouse. The title is The Light Between Oceans. The lighthouse is fictitious as the story is a fictional and moral adventure, but the reviews show that the author, Ms. M. L. Stedman has a masterpiece here. Read some of the reviews below and see what you think. If anyone has read the book, please comment.
When Tom decides to become a lighthouse keeper, he’s given a placement at Janus Rock. It’s a tough posting on a square mile of green, accessible only by boat, that ”dangled off the edge of the cloth like a loose button that might easily plummet to Antarctica”. The closest community is Point Partageuse, a town long neglected by the outside world until the outside world found use for its young men in 1914. http://www.smh.com.au Continue reading Book Review – The Light Between Oceans
Deadline Looms for Canada’s Lighthouses
From: “Heritage Foundation of Canada” HeritageCanadaFoundation@heritagecanada.org
Subject: HCF / FHC Communiqué :
Deadline Looms for Canada’s Historic Lighthouses
Date sent: Thu, 22 Mar 2012 21:11:01 +0000
Deadline Looms for Canada’s Historic Lighthouses
Ottawa, ON, March 23, 2012 – The Heritage Canada Foundation (HCF) is urging Canadians to sign a petition http://www.savecanadaslighthouses.ca/ to help save Canada’s historic lighthouses.
The Government of Canada owns hundreds of iconic lighthouses, and has declared almost all of them to be “surplus”. Canadians have until May 29, 2012 to nominate lighthouses that matter to them for designation under the Heritage Lighthouse Protection Act. However, almost all of them will require a proposal from an organization or group willing to acquire and invest in them. Continue reading Deadline Looms for Canada’s Lighthouses
The Lightkeeper – many years ago he had no contact with anyone – now the whole world can communicate with him and through him!
Around 2004 the Canadian government decided to limit the weather report information put out by the lighthouse keepers to a very restricted set of criteria.
Wind detecting devices (anemometers) were removed, pressure detecting devices (barometers) were removed and devices for measuring cloud height (ceilometers) were also removed. Basic weather training was kept to a minimum. The lightkeeper was left to his own devices to observe and report the weather every three hours to his designated Coast Guard radio station.
No one was interested or affected . . . except those that used the weather reports! – the aircraft pilots, cruise ships, fishing boats, recreational boaters, and others that travelled the wind-swept and storm-lashed west coast of British Columbia. This coast is over 7,000 kilometres long from Vancouver, BC to Alaska, USA if you follow all its indentations, and sometimes these indentations are a life-saver when a storm blows up. (see the article Why We Need MORE Lighthouses . . .) Continue reading Weather Reporting at Boat Bluff c. 2004
One of the events we looked forward to every year was the return of the trollers1 in the Spring to McInnes Island waters. Around the station was troller territory. In the deeper waters of Milbanke Sound was the place for the seiners.
We made friends with a few of the fishermen, and always got a wave from all the boats when we were on the water. Sometimes we also got advice on what to use (lures or bait) and how deep. They knew we were not much competition.
Trolling looks like a very leisurely activity, and it usually is in a sport boat with only one or two lines in the water. On a commercial troller boat with fifty (50) lines in the water it was hectic. It was an all day job, from first light to dusk. Sometimes alone, sometimes with two men, depending on the size of the boat. Continue reading Return of the Fishboats
Many Canadians celebrate Mother’s Day by showing their appreciation for Mothers or Mother figures. The Mother’s Day date in Canada is on the second Sunday of May each year and it will be on Sunday, May 13, 2012 this year.
For all of you living on southern Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada (or in Vancouver) there is a special Mother’s Day Brunch at the Lighthouse Bistro and Pub in Nanaimo, BC (Vancouver island). Continue reading Mother’s Day Brunch in Canada 2012
Over the years since I started this website in 2005 I have collected many books on British Columbia lighthouses. Some with only a reference to lighthouse, others dedicated exclusively to BC lighthouses like Donald Graham’s books.
Later I will dedicate a page to each book as I have to some earlier ones, but right now I am more interested in showing newcomers what is/was available so that they will recognize them when they are found in a flea market or garage sale.
If you click on the photo left, it will take you to a modified page from my old website which lists books that I have collected over the years. It will also specify if the book is available for sale or not.
Listed below are a few more lighthouse-related books that did not make it onto that list before I created this new website. If you can, please send me an email or comment about a new book that you have found. I will add it to the list and we can make this as complete as possible. Also, if possible, would you please also send a scan of the front cover so I can add it to the pages. You know the old saying “A picture is worth a thousand words”. Thank you.
Shipwrecks Along the West Coast Trail – Richard E. Wells – Sono Nis Press
Silent Seige III – Bert Webber – 301 pages – Webb Research Group (December 1992)
The Last Island – Alison Watt – Harbour Publishing – 978-1-55017-296-6 · 1-55017-296-4
$34.95 · Hardback 6.5 x 9.5 · 192 pp · September 2002 (Available)
http://www.harbourpublishing.com/title/TheLastIsland
ISBN-10: 0936738731, 10.7 x 8.3 x 0.9 inches
There’s A Landing Today – Richard E. Wells – Sono Nis press
The following extracts taken from early Victoria, British Columbia (BC) newspapers are credited to Leona Taylor for her excellent work in indexing the papers. Full information can be found here: ”Index of Historical Victoria Newspapers“, 2007-09.
photograph: Carmanah Point lighthouse, to be rebuilt this year by Marine Dept. The wooden tower shown is the old original one, which has undergone repairs from time to time, and which was 1st put in place over 40 years ago. [Colonist, 1920-05-30, p. 30]
Carmanah lighthouse tower will not be rebuilt this year. Calling for tenders was so delayed that the season has become too far advanced for the work to be one. [Colonist, 1920-10-02, p. 8] Continue reading Lighthouse History – 47 (1920-05-30 – 1922-09-20)
Chance Brothers – Early Suppliers of Equipment for Canadian Lighthouses
The graphic to the left appeared on The Lighthouse Society of Great Britain (LSGB) website.
After much Googling for it I finally found “With regret, this website has been closed.” The information below is printed with permission of Dr. Ken Tretheway.
Dr. Trethewy’s site had all the data from this book on line in PDF files which I am going to host here as they are priceless documents showing the inner workings of older British and Canadian lighthouses.
The available PDF file, A Few Notes on Modern Lighthouse Practice, can be read, saved, and downloaded from this link (2.45 MB).
The drawings in the gallery below are all referred to in the PDF book but are not reproduced therein. Continue reading Books – Chance Brothers – Early Suppliers of Equipment for Canadian Lighthouses
On April 19, 2012 I wrote an article about using The Lighthouse as a Sovereignty Symbol to mark a nations claims to disputed lands. One of the disputed lands was the Scarborough Shoals of my new homeland of the Philippines, just off the central west coast of the largest island Luzon where I am living.
The story below is from the military analysis blog by albert e. and gives a better perspective on the matter, plus a bit of historical information to clarify the whos and whys. A nice reference to a Tom Clancy novel as well.
Updates to this conflict are posted when available in the
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sunday, july 15, 2012
Scarborough Fair?
This is coolbert:
NO, NOT Scarborough Fair but Scarborough Shoals.
Spratly Islands, South China Sea, and now Scarborough.
That latest incident involving “land” and territorial claims in the South China Sea, on this particular occasion just recently, Filipino and Chinese warships [patrol craft] facing off – – the punador [point of honor] being the Scarborough Shoals.
NOT even islands or a land mass but reefs and chunks and bits of rock only visible at low tide off the coast of Luzon, within the limits of what the Filipino claims as an Economic Exclusion Zone [EEZ] but is also claimed by China.
“on April 11, 2012, the Philippine navy stopped and boarded eight Chinese fishing vessels in the shoals. In order to demonstrate that the Chinese fishermen had not been innocently deep-sea fishing in the area, the navy took pictures of one of the crews standing on a pile of giant clams presumably taken from the shoal.”
Chinese fishing vessels confronted by the Philippine Navy, further confrontation occurring with the intervention of Chinese naval forces!!
“Scarborough Shoal or Scarborough Reef [more correctly described as a group of rocks or very small islands plus reefs in an atoll shape], rather than as a shoal, is located between the Macclesfield Bank and Luzon Island of the Philippines in the South China Sea” Continue reading Reprint – NO, NOT Scarborough Fair but Scarborough Shoals.