Sunday evening, 5:30 we made it out to our first night's stop at Point Arena.
Tim, who hadn't left yet, let us know we could tour the lighthouse the next morning at 10:00
When we told him we'd not be able to hang around that long, he was kind enough to unlock the gates and museum and give us a private tour before he took off for the night.
we were excited to see seals hanging out on the rocks until the tide came in and washed them back into the sea.
after we made an easy dinner and finished off with the little sand dollar chocolates
our last stop on the way out was to pet Mina, who was already put up in her safe space for the night when we arrived but was out as we departed.
Tim, who hadn't left yet, let us know we could tour the lighthouse the next morning at 10:00
When we told him we'd not be able to hang around that long, he was kind enough to unlock the gates and museum and give us a private tour before he took off for the night.
The lighthouse you see here was put into service in 1908, two years after the original was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake. The original's interior steel staircase did not collapse, allowing the light keeper to escape during the quake.
The rebuild, first of its kind, was made by a chimney builder, with reinforced steel beams inside concrete.
The centerpiece of the museum is the 1st Order Fresnel Lens, over six feet in diameter and weighing more than six tons. The lens was made up of 666 hand-ground glass prisms all focused toward three sets of double bullseyes. It was these bullseyes that gave the Point Arena Lighthouse its unique "light signature" of two flashes every six seconds. The optics, which held an appraised value of over $3.5 million, was set in solid brass framework, and was built in France.
This is the "mercury bath and drive" that rotated the light instead of the old hand crank, was finally retired in 1977, the last of its kind.
it was built around the original staircase, the only remnant that survived
as Tim was locking up, a line of pelicans came overhead and past us
Tim had seen a whale spout earlier in the day, but they'd moved on by the evening.
He left us to look around and get tucked into our Keeper's Room for the night
we were excited to see seals hanging out on the rocks until the tide came in and washed them back into the sea.
after we made an easy dinner and finished off with the little sand dollar chocolates
The next morning I roamed around a bit while Marci got ready
thought it was appropriate to discover the crab constellation right in our window in the A.M.
the three odd DVDs in the room are connected by all having shots of the lighthouse in them
0 comments:
Post a Comment