FAROL DO FORTE DA BARRA, AVEIRO IV

Colecção Miguel Chaby

FAROL DO FORTE DA BARRA, AVEIRO III

Postal Portugal Turistico

FAROL DO FORTE DA BARRA, AVEIRO II

Postal Edição da EDERAV

FAROL DO FORTE DA BARRA, AVEIRO I

Postal Edição da Papelaria Avenida

PESCADORES DAS FILIPINAS

Photo & Copyright James

NAS ILHAS GALÁPAGOS

Photo & Copyright Heiko

NAVIO ESCOLA SAGRES INICIA HOJE A 3ª VIAGEM DE CIRCUM-NAVEGAÇÃO

O Navio-Escola Sagres largou, no passado dia 19 de Janeiro, de Lisboa rumo a uma viagem de Volta ao Mundo, com duração de cerca de 11 meses. Esta é a terceira vez que a Sagres realiza uma Circum-navegação, tendo as últimas viagens ocorrido em 1978/ 79 e em 1983/84.

Durante esta viagem a Sagres irá visitar vários países, são eles o Brasil, o Uruguai, a Argentina, o Chile, o Peru, o Equador, o México, os EUA, o Japão, a China (incluindo Macau), a Coreia do Sul, a Indonésia, Timor-Leste, Singapura, a Tailândia, a Malásia, a União Indiana, o Egipto e a Argélia.

Nesta viagem a Sagres terá como missão a formação dos cadetes da Escola Naval, promover a imagem de Portugal no Mundo, contactar os Portugueses na Diáspora e participará em vários eventos, entre os quais o Encontro e Regata Internacional de Grandes Veleiros - Velas Sudamérica 2010, as Comemorações do Dia de Portugal em S. Diego, as Cerimónias Comemorativas dos 150 anos do Tratado de Paz, Amizade e Comércio entre Portugal e o Japão e participará na EXPO Xangai 2010.

O Navio-Escola “Sagres” é um veleiro com 90 metros de comprimento, com 4 mastros e armação em barca, construída nos estaleiros navais Blohm & Voss, na Alemanha, em 1937 e navega há 48 anos com a missão principal de assegurar a formação marinheira dos futuros oficiais da Marinha Portuguesa, complementando as componentes técnica e académica ministradas na Escola Naval e a de representação da Marinha e do país no estrangeiro, desempenhando o papel de embaixada itinerante de Portugal.

A “Sagres” é comandada pelo Capitão-de-Fragata Luís Pedro Pinto Proença Mendes e contará para esta missão com uma guarnição de 182 militares, incluindo 35 Cadetes da Escola Naval durante três meses.

IMO Number: 0
MMSI Number: 263141000
Calsign: CTEC


Texto Nautica Press

ABANDONED RUSSIAN POLAR NUCLEAR LIGHTHOUSES

Russian Northern coast is a vast territory lays for a few thousand of miles and all this coastline is inside the Polar Circle. Long polar winters mean no daylight at all, just one day changes another without any sign of the Sun rising above the horizon. There is only polar night for 100 day a year.

But across this Northern coast there was always a short way for the cargo boats to travel from Eastern part of Russia to the Western. Now this trip can be made fairly easy with the appearance of all the satellite navigation equipment like GPS and others, but during the Soviet Era they had none of this.

So, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union decided to build a chain of lighthouses to guide ships finding their way in the dark polar night across uninhabited shores of the Soviet Russian Empire. So it has been done and a series of such lighthouses has been erected.

They had to be fully autonomous, because they were situated hundreds and hundreds miles aways from any populated areas. After reviewing different ideas on how to make them work for a years without service and any external power supply, Soviet engineers decided to implement atomic energy to power up those structures.

So, special lightweight small atomic reactors were produced in limited series to be delivered to the Polar Circle lands and to be installed on the lighthouses. Those small reactors could work in the independent mode for years and didn’t require any human interference, so it was very handy in the situation like this.

It was a kind of robot-lighthouse which counted itself the time of the year and the length of the daylight, turned on its lights when it was needed and sent radio signals to near by ships to warn them on their journey. It all looks like ran out the sci-fi book pages, but so they were.

Then, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the unattended automatic lighthouses did it job for some time, but after some time they collapsed too. Mostly as a result of the hunt for the metals like copper and other stuff which were performed by the looters.

They didn’t care or maybe even didn’t know the meaning of the “Radioactive Danger” sign and ignored them, breaking in and destroying the equipment. It sounds creepy but they broke into the reactors too causing all the structures to become radioactively polluted.

Those photos are from the trip to the one of such structures, the most close to the populated areas of the Russian far east. Now, there are signs “RADIOACTIVITY” written with big white letters on the approaching paths to the structure but they don’t stop the abandoned exotics lovers.


Photo & Copyright English Russia

A SHIP IN A COOL WATERS

Photo & Copyright Frode

SINGLE SHIP

Photo & Copyright Frank

POINT PINOS LIGHTHOUSE, MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA, USA

The oldest active lighthouse on the West Coast is located at the western edge of the town of Pacific Grove, near Monterey.

Pinos has shone since 1855, and the building, third-order lens and prisms of the light are all original

Foto & Copyright California lights

SURFISTA

Photo & Copyright Juan

PESCADORES AO PÔR DO SOL

Photo & Copyright Blaize

COMPETICION

Photo & Copyright Blaize

LIFE GUARD

Photo & Copyright Roger

PRAIA DE S JOAO, COSTA DA CAPARICA, COSTA AZUL, PORTUGAL

Photo & Copyright Luis Villas

BROTHERS OF THE SEA

Photo & Copyright Mauro

SUB

Photo & Copyright Ingvar

THE MONSTER

Photo & Copyright Daniel

PESCADOR SOLITÁRIO

Photo & Copyright Gary

SPLASH

Photo & Copyright Hadar

THE LAST WAVE

Photo & Copyright Franz

NA PRAIA ..

Photo & Copyright EWA

DANÇA DE GAIVOTAS

Photo & Copyright Dan

NOVA ZELANDIA

Photo & Copyright Brent

ILHAS SAMOA

Photo & Copyright Bradd

FAROL ASSOMBRADO

Photo & Copyright Bora

WIND AND SURF

Photo & Copyright Boris

CAVALO MARINHO

Photo & Copyright Bob

WHALE IN THE OCEAN

AMELAND LIGHTHOUSE, HOLLAND

NAVIO GREGO

Photo & Copyright Alireza

O PRAZER DA VELA

Photo & Copyright Antonio

FAROL NAS NUVENS

Photo & Copyright Anneke

ÁGUAS DA GRECIA

Photo & Copyright Andreas

ÁGUAS DE SIDNEY, AUSTRÁLIA

Photo & Copyright Allan

ÁGUAS DO DUBAI

Photo & Copyright Hashim

PORTO DE HAMBURG

Photo & Copyright Herbert

NA COMPANHIA DE UM FAROL

Photo & Copyright John

OPERAÇÃO DE RESGATE

Photo & Copyright Nick

A FAINA DE BORDO

Photo & Copyright Edwin

FERRY

Photo & Copyright Keith

LIGHTHOUSE OF USA : CONCORD POINT

Concord Point Lighthouse at Havre de Grace, Maryland was established to warn seafaring vessels away from the treacherous currents and shoals near the mouth of the Susquehanna River. Master builder John Donahoo was responsible for the construction of the lighthouse in his hometown, where he also served multiple terms as a Havre de Grace town commissioner.

At the time of its decommissioning in 1975, the Concord Point Lighthouse had the distinction of being the oldest beacon in continuous use in the entire state of Maryland. The name Concord Point is derived from Conquered Point, which is itself a rearrangement of the original christening, Point of Conquest.

The 484-square-foot lighthouse tract was deeded to the federal government by the town commissioners in 1826, and one year later Congress approved funds for the lighthouse. A truncated conical tower topped by a nine-sided lantern and deck, the lighthouse was built with Port Deposit granite. The walls are three feet, eleven inches thick at the base of the structure, where the inside diameter of the tower is eleven feet.

A tongue and groove mahogany door, identical to the one found at Pooles Island light, guards the entranceway, while a spiral staircase made of triangular granite steps leads to a quarter-circular stone landing, from which the lantern may be accessed by climbing a slightly angled iron ship’s ladder. The lantern floor is composed of radially cut stone pieces, which are held in place by flat iron keys. The storm panels on the lantern are secured by iron mullions cast in an unusual fin shape. The original illuminating apparatus consisted of nine constant-level lamps, each with its own 16-inch reflector.

A keeper’s house, located near the lighthouse, was also built by Donahoo out of Port Deposit granite. The house, which still stands, is 34 by 20 feet and was originally built with a fireplace and a closet in each of its rooms. The building contract specified large double hung windows of eight over eight panes of glass and a shingled roof.

The kitchen, which is no longer standing, possessed “a sizable oven with an iron door, iron crane...and on one side of the chimney a sink, with a spout leading through the wall.” From the house, the keeper was able to take in the panorama of the lighthouse tower overlooking the confluence of the Susquehanna River and the Chesapeake Bay.

Over the years, the keepers at Concord Point have usually been descendants of John O’Neill, an Irish immigrant who arrived in America at age eighteen. O’Neill achieved lasting fame during the War of 1812, when British ships commanded by Admiral Sir George Cockburn turned their guns on Havre de Grace.

As a local militia lieutenant in charge of some four dozen men, O’Niell’s mission was to hold a small parapet of three cannons named Potato Battery. Many of O’Neill’s soldiers were too old to serve in the regular United States Army, and when the British opened fire they all decided to abandon their posts.

O’Neill declined to join his retreating men, and heroically took charge of one of the cannons himself. Later he described the experience: “The grape shot flew thick about me. I loaded the gun myself without anyone to serve the vent, which, you know is very dangerous, and when I fired her, she recoiled and ran over my thigh.” Shortly thereafter O’Neill was forced to retreat into town; nevertheless he procured a musket and continued to fire on the ships, all the while trying to entice the fleeing members of his troop to return and assist him.

O’Neill was eventually captured by the British and sentenced to be hanged aboard one of their ships, but his 15 year-old daughter rowed out in a skiff and plead for her father’s life. Admiral Cockburn was so impressed by her courage that he released O’Neill and gave the Irishman’s daughter a gold and tortoise-shell snuff box, which is presently in the keeping of the Maryland Historical Society.

O’Neill managed to parlay his heroic stature into a town commissioner’s position in Havre de Grace. He also managed another political appointment: first lighthouse keeper at Concord Point. At the time, the appointment of keepers was a very politicized process, with the coveted jobs usually going to those well connected to powerful decision makers.

O’Neill stayed on the job from 1927 until his death in 1838, at which time his son took over. Before the light’s automation in 1920, numerous grandsons and great-grandsons of O’Neill had served as keepers of the light.

A perusal of the Lighthouse Board’s annual reports reveals that Concord Point has been a relatively low-maintenance structure over the years. In 1855 the lantern’s nine constant-level lamps were replaced with a steamer’s lens. This in turn was upgraded to a sixth-order Fresnel lens in 1869, and then a fifth-order lens in 1891.

In 1884, an extra story was added to the keeper’s house. The light station was switched over to electrical operation in 1920, and at that time a portion of the lighthouse grounds and the keeper’s house were sold for $4,000. While the house was converted to an inn, the land around the lighthouse itself was neglected and became overgrown. The Concord Point beacon was no longer needed by 1975, and was therefore decommissioned. Mysteriously, the Fresnel lens disappeared from the tower shortly thereafter, prompting a group of concerned citizens to form the non-profit Friends of Concord Point Lighthouse to restore and maintain the structure.

The Friends helped turn the lighthouse grounds into a beautiful tree-lined park, which attracts thousands of visitors each year. The landscaping improvements made to the property are impressive, given that the grounds were in the past open and grassy, without many sizable trees. Havre de Grace town records indicate that portions of the grounds behind the keeper’s dwelling were initially swampy, requiring John O’Neill to fill them in using a horse and cart.

Recently the non-profit group has turned its attentions to the keeper’s house, which they purchased with the intention of restoring it. The dwelling has been altered significantly over the last two centuries. For its conversion to an inn, it was partitioned into numerous rooms and covered in stucco. The Friends commissioned a study of the house’s history and original architecture, which was a vital step, given the Maryland Historic Trust’s very strict standards for restorations. A before and after photograph of the dwelling show the remarkable job the Friends have done. Visitors to the lighthouse and dwelling are now afforded a glimpse into the everyday lives of lighthouse keepers and their families, circa the early 1900s.

The house stands roughly 200 feet from the tower, and Concord Street has been extended so that it now separates the two structures. Currently Concord Point Lighthouse is listed as a private aid to navigation, exhibiting a light via a fifth-order Fresnel lens. Some insist that the present lens, on loan from the Coast Guard and the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, is in fact the original one that disappeared in 1975.

Located on the western side of the mouth of the Susquehanna River in Havre De Grace.Latitude: 39.5407Longitude: -76.08476

First Photo & Copyright Eric
Second Photo & Copyright Lighthouse Friends
Text : http://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=411

O FAROLEIRO

Photo & Copyright Guichard

TRÁFEGO MARITIMO

Photo & Copyright Ferruccio

CAYMAN ISLANDS

Photo & Copyright Elijah

O REFLEXO DO PÔR DO SOL

Photo & Copyright Dejan

PORTO TRANQUILO

Photo & Copyright Danijel

MAR BALTICO

Photo & Copyright Dainis