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The Provincetown lighthouses – Race Point, Wood End and Long Light

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Actually we and then I tried to visit these three lights on two different days. They are all along the very end of the Cape, beyond Provincetown itself and not easy to reach. Race Point light is no longer functional as a lighthouse, it’s become a B&B, as have the two houses next to it. We started to walk the 2+ miles to reach it on an incredibly windy day. The good thing about the wind, apart from its cooling effect, was that it kept the green flies away. The walk is down a fire road lined with short pine trees, wild flowers and bushes for about a mile, and then in the open through a marshy area full of lovely swaying marshy green grasses. By the time we were getting close and would have turned onto the sandbar behind the beach where the lighthouse lay another half mile or so away, the wind was so strong (and there had been serious thunderstorm warnings which of course never came to anything) that we got worried we’d be blown away and turned back.

Unfortunately, my photos that day were on my iPhone, which I discovered just cannot cope with distance. They are so bad that I’m too embarrassed to show them. Blurry, you can barely see the lighthouse, and the beauty of the surrounding area is lost completely.

So today I tried again from another angle. I walked across the dike you can see in this photo of huge rocks, water on both sides, hoping to get all the way across, and then in the middle of the dike, the stones started being difficult to cross and I got scared and turned back. For a while I was behind two women a bit younger than me, also cautious, but we helped and chivvied each other to keep going. Then the one in front refused to go further, she was just too unsure of her footing. I wasn’t about to go further on my own at that stage, so I turned back with them. Damn! Some people just hopped across.

Can you see the light to the right of the dike, that dot all the way across the water? Here is another view that shows how lovely the marshes are with the lighthouse a bit larger: 

And here is one of the other two lights, Wood End light, even further away and blurry in the enlarged version of the photo here. Not sure how to get closer just now. May try it another time.

As for Long light, it was just too far away to get a photo at all. I’m going to check out the water taxis tomorrow if the weather is nice. Still, I think I’ve got lots more to show than I had before these trips. Shall I drive down to the Chatham light too? Now that is a long long drive. To the tip of the elbow of the Cape. Watch this space!!

More and more lighthouses – the Three Sisters and the Nauset Light

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I’m on Cape Cod again (hurray!) and in just two days this week I’ve visited another lighthouse and another and another one! On one day, we were headed for the Nauset light, which is on the ocean side of north Eastham, you’ll see it in a minute from every possible angle. But first we discovered the Three Sisters, inland a third of a mile from her, all three plunked down in a clearing surrounded by trees, where they certainly can’t light the way as they used to long ago, but preserved for people to be charmed by. Here is the first sister, the others are hiding behind her, especially number three, who is in the second picture far behind number two:

And then we went down a path through the trees towards the beach, till we got to the Nauset light. What a lovely light! Suddenly there she was through the trees! 

This lighthouse had to be moved because the coast where it stood was crumbling. And the lightkeeper’s house, over 100 years old, was moved with it and sits right next door. There’s no longer a lightkeeper but there is a voluntary group who stopped the lighthouse being demolished and now they keep it tidy, show people round, and keep it well painted and looking very dressed up. So here she is, from all angles!

I warned you it would be from all angles! Isn’t she sweet? And here she is with the lighthouse keeper’s cottage:

We were even able to climb up inside and see the top where the light was going round and round. Here are two shots of the top of the light, from inside, where the two lights are going round:

OK, time to leave and let the kids in who are waiting outside to climb up. Wave bye-bye! 

Lisbon lighthouse and monument, 2009

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In Lisbon in 2009, where I went to yet another conference, this one on access to medical abortion pills, we took the tram down along the water to where all the museums could be found, e.g. the nautical museum, the contemporary art museum, an enormous former  monastery, and much more, including this lighthouse. It wasn’t my favourite at the time, but it’s growing on me even as I study it now. It’s certainly the only brown and beige striped lighthouse I’ve encountered, and it is quite petite compared to others, with a lovely shape. And that day certainly boasted the bluest sky I have ever seen.

But the really spectacular monument on that long pier was this one. You can see how enormous it is from the size of the people walking toward it.

Here’s what its prow (it was of a ship) looked like closer up. A huge impressive sculpture, try to imagine how it was done.

Cape Town: my favourite lighthouse so far, 2008

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In November 2008, I went to Cape Town to the AWID conference. But what I remember most is the afternoon we drove down the road by the ocean, with rain pelting down and the wind blowing madly. We stopped the car so I could take some photos. Here is one of my best — a red and white lighthouse surrounded by palm trees.

Meanwhile, here’s what it looked like out to sea at that moment.

Was I ever glad to be in a car!