Ocean Solitude.
My husband and I spent a couple of days at the Pacific Coast. One of my favorite areas is the Point Reyes National Seashore. We went to the light house which is on a rock 10 miles out in the ocean. It was a treacherous place for ships and Point Reyes was a crucial place to have a lighthouse. It is a long lonely road to get to the lighthouse, and a long time ago, it took a lighthouse keeper 7 hours to drive the road to the lighthouse. Parts for the lighthouse came via Drake's Harbor not far away, where pieces were lifted from the boat, and taken the rest of the way by oxen. There are 300 steps down to the lighthouse. Yep, we walked the 300 steps. Look closely and you can see the lighthouse at the bottom of the rocks and the stairs leading to the lighthouse.
This is what the inside of Point Reyes lighthouse looks like. There are over 200 panes of glass, and the wick originally was lit by lard, then kerosene, and finally a light bulb. There is a certain pattern to the flashing light which enables sailers to know exactly where they are. There were more than 150 shipwrecks before the lighthouse was erected.
This is the beautiful Point Reyes coastline.
Bruce and I cast long shadows in the late afternoon.
posted by candy @ 11:42 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Oh, Candy! We LOVE Point Reyes. DK and I went to Point Reyes on our very first date ever. Many years later, we spent 3 weeks of his sabbatical camped at Samuel P. Taylor, and drove over to Point Reyes every day. That's one of the best lighthouses we've been to (and we've visited a few.) These photos are beautiful and make me terribly homesick. We visited the Atlantic for the first time about 3 weeks ago and were stunned by how HOT the beach, air, and water all were. And that's not addressing the major disorientation that came with having the sun coming up out of the ocean in the morning!
I know what you mean. When I lived in NH I went to the ocean whenever I could. I was struck by a few things. How crowded it was. How gray the water was. How the lack of cliffs affected me. There were two beautiful places I did visit. One was Plum Island in Mass. and Odiorne Point, a state park in Nh up near Portsmouth. I am sorry, but nice as they are, nothing beats the Pacific Coast...I do hope to visit Prince Edwards Island and Nova Scotia someday, which may redeem the east for me. :)
Of course PEi will redeem the east for you Candy :) and Nova Scotia is very pretty too. I loved seeing the pictures of the Pacific Ocean - I've never been there. It's hard to imagine being that lighthousekeeper - what a solitary life.
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