Cape Lookout, NC will always be my favorite lighthouse, but Ponce Inlet is a close second for me. The view at the top was amazing. It is kind of funny because I have always enjoyed looking at lighthouses and I thought that I was nearly done with my obsession. I have been collecting miniature lighthouses for many years and I almost left them packed in boxes when we moved here. I unpacked the ones that had the most significance to me and set them out because as it would turn out, I am not quite over the obsession.
The first lighthouse I remember seeing was Bodie Island, NC. I was sixteen years old and we drove by it on our way to Cape Hatteras, NC. It is a magnificent structure that sat in isolation back from the beach with nothing but the keeper's house to keep it company. I often wonder what it would have been like to be a keeper and have the weight of the shipping fleet on my shoulders. It is an awesome responsibility that is certainly not for the weak spirited and physically handicapped. It was of utmost importance to keep the lights burning in the worst weather...
Then we arrived at Cape Hatteras, and it was breathtaking. The first time we were there, it sat on the beach. If I thought Bodie Island was isolated, Cape Hatteras was even more so. There was nothing but sand between the water and the lighthouse and my favorite time to visit was not on the calm, clear days but rather, the grey days when the ocean was angry. To me it seemed the lighthouse was even more isolated. I used to give the lighthouse a personality and feelings, and I would often imagine that it was lonely. It had to be, with it's light calling out in the darkness, beckoning to the sailors that had to stay away because the sandy shoals were too treacherous, protecting them from the shallow waters that had taken so many lives before them. Lighthouses call to me because of the wild isolation, and the loneliness of the environment that surrounds them. There is something romantic about being the only person on a sandy beach, and although most people would agree about the wildness and the romanticism, it should never detract from how hard the job of being a keeper truly was.
I know that this is about Ponce Inlet, but it has been 16 years or so since I went to Cape Hatteras lighthouse for the first time. It has been moved back from the beach to protect it's foundation. The Outer Banks of North Carolina are barrier islands that come and go with the changing of the seas, and unfortunately the sea is eroding the beach at a fast rate. You can read more about the lighthouse and the move here:
http://www.nps.gov/caha/historyculture/movingthelighthouse.htm
Without further ado, some Ponce Inlet pictures and one of the lighthouse at Cape Canaveral and some links with information about both:
http://www.ponceinlet.org/
http://canaverallight.org/about-2
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