Description: A light keeper’s life is one of hazards and hardships; however, living on a sub tropical barrier island off the coast of Florida should make it easier. Of all the lighthouses we've visited,
The Ponce De Leon Light Station in Ponce Inlet FL is the one I'd like to be living at. The entire complex is laid out in the form of a huge cross with the three light keepers' dwellings at each end and the lighthouse in the center. It is one of the few lighthouses in the country to be a National Historic Landmark.
It is the only old lighthouse complex in the country with all the original out buildings still intact. The brick light keepers' houses are now museums. Two are furnished as they might have been in the late 1800s and the largest one, the principal light keeper's house, is a museum about the sea. In the museum there was a model of an archeological site of a shipwreck showing how the area in the water can be identified with metal stakes and ropes squaring it off. Navigational tools were on display and a video showed how they were used. In the woodshed, we watched a video about the lives of the light keepers at Ponce Inlet.
The new Lens Exhibit Building houses the first order Fresnel lens installed in the light house when it was built in 1887. The lens was ten feet tall, six feet wide and weighed 2000 pounds. It had the capacity of 15,000 candlepower from a kerosene lamp and could be seen 18 miles out at sea. It not only guided vessels to Ponce Inlet, it also guided their course along the Atlantic shore toward the shoals around Cape Canaveral.
We climbed the 203 old cast iron steps, inside the tower, circling up to the light. At the top of every 22 steps there is a landing. While we relaxed from the climb we read the informative display boards hanging on the wall. From the lookout at the top we could see Ponce Inlet and south, the marinas along the Halifax River and Daytona Beach along the Atlantic Ocean. The view is spectacular and time should be allowed to enjoy it after the long climb. The lens room was sealed off with an iron grid. The pedestal for the original Fresnel lens was still in place. The inside of the tower was painted gray and in places the walls felt damp.
We entered the complex through the Visitors' Center and gift shop. There is a $5 fee to go out on the grounds and see everything.
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