Hope Town Settlement Lighthouse Tour

 Bucket List: Elbow Cay Lighthouse in Hope Town, Bahamas

We docked the dinghy, with a stern anchor out, right at the lighthouse dock for our free self-guided tour. The woman in the gift shop was very friendly and informative.




The light in this lighthouse is the only one in the world that still runs on kerosene and is hand-cranked! We saw the block-and-tackle they use to bring up the kerosene to the pressurized tank. OSHA has no jurisdiction here...



101 steps to the top. It's fascinating to us that a cochlea 🐚 is a naturally occurring geometric shape. Part of the beautiful way God made order in the universe.



According to the brochure, "The lighting source is a 325,000 candlepower "Hood" petroleum vapour burner. A hand pump is used to pressurize the petroleum (kerosene) which is in the heavy green iron containers below the lantern room. The fuel travels up a tube to a vapourizer within the burner which sprays into a preheated mantle. Pressurized camping lanterns operate similarly."



"The beautiful Fresnel lens with its five "bull's-eyes" concentrate the mantle's light into piercing beams which shine straight out towards the horizon, instead of up and down and all around, as in a camp lantern." - from the brochure



The view of the entrance to Hope Town Harbour from the top of the lighthouse is amazing.  We love the clear, blue water of the Bahamas.




Hope Town Harbour is full of moorings so more boats can fit. One guide book says that there is an anchoring spot in there somewhere. Yeah. Good Luck. The cruisers here are so helpful.  They run a Cruiser's Net on VHF channel 68 every morning at 08:15, answer questions, and help to find supplies.



We enjoyed our stay so much, that we ended up anchoring off Parrot Cays five times to visit the town, get propane, see the lighthouse, and walk the beautiful beaches on the Atlantic side of the island.



Lots of bougainvillea, tidy yards, pastel houses, and white sandy beaches. The effects of Hurricane Dorian can still be seen, but are being erased by a resilient, cheerful people.  One guy had a shirt on that said, "Dorian destroyed us, but Dorian does not define us." 






Hope Town Settlement earns the title of the most quaint, cute town we have seen in the Bahamas.  Well, so far...

Location: Hope Town, The Bahamas

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wire You Doing This?

Image
We spent our anniversary, November 13th, getting ready for sailing to the Bahamas next week. Nine long wires came out the bottom of our new mast, and they needed to be run to various parts of the boat. Only they need to go under the stove, behind the cabinet, through the wall, around the plumbing, through that hole that is not big enough, and into the fifth dimension. This required calisthenics, yoga, and the escape skills of Houdini. I found my torso trapped in a storage area door, my arms were no help because they were over my head, my legs were tight up against the nearby (too nearby) wall. I began to wonder if Cindy would cut the cabinet to pieces to get me out, or cut me into pieces to get out of sailboat maintenance. I bet Houdini could have done it underwater while handcuffed. We spent the entire day with knee pads, a hole saw, and sweat. Good thing sweaty bodies are slippery, or we might still be stuck. Whoo-hoo! We have a galley sole again!
Read more

Au Revoir, St Bart's. Hello Antigua!

Image
 We made it from St Bart's to Antigua! We anchored by the light of the waning gibbous moon at 02:00. Steep seas and close-hauled winds made for a bit of a slog, but we were not in a hurry. We watched brown booby birds fish alongside us for miles. I think we were stirring up the flying fish for them. We ended up with ten fish on the deck, but none on a fishing pole. 
Read more
Image
Over the Rode My wife, Cindy, and I are over-the-road truck drivers. We drive team. Team driving means that one of us is always driving and one of us is a lways sleeping. Over the last thirty years of criss-crossing the United States and Canada, we have accumulated a huge number of "remember when" moments. As in, "remember when we went hiking on Snoqualmie for the first time?" Or, "remember when it took five hours to cross the George Washington Bridge because of construction?" Or, "remember when the blizzard closed I-80 in Wyoming on Christmas?" As we drive now, every mile of interstate brings up memories from the hundreds of other times we have been there. We often feel sorry for the people who vacation around the United States and Canada who fly from city to city. They don't get to experience the country mile by mile like we get to. Airplane vacationers don't know that the Texas bluebonnets start blooming in the south, then wo
Read more