Friday, June 10, 2011

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse

This past weekend we went to see another lighthouse.  This one was the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.  It is the tallest lighthouse in America and the tallest brick lighthouse in the world. 

The automated beacon of light from the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse is visible every seven seconds. Over 1 million bricks, baked in kilns along the James River in Virginia, were used during construction between 1868 and 1870.

It is believed that the engineer who was originally assigned to paint North Carolina's lighthouses got his plans mixed up. Apparently, the diamond-shaped figures, which were supposed to warn traffic away from Diamond Shoals, went to Cape Lookout. The Cape Hatteras Lighthouse received spiral striping, thus obtaining the nickname ''The Big Barber Pole.''

We enjoyed the visit very much.  We did not grab that many pictures though because of the smoke that was in the air today.  There is a fire on the mainland and the smoke was courtesy of that.

1 comments:

DDonald said...

Lighthouses,shipwrecks and surfers - Oh my! Looks like you are having a wonderful time. And as always - love your photography.