20 May - Ponce de Leon Inlet Lighthouse, Beach Walk

 

This morning we drove about 75 miles north to the Ponce de Leon Inlet Lighthouse, located just south of Daytona FL.  It was shorter to visit this lighthouse from our campground in Cape Canaveral than to come south from our next stop which is Mayport Naval Air Station Jacksonville FL.  

The Ponce de Leon Inlet Lighthouse is one of the most beautifully preserved and maintained lighthouses we have ever visited, and we have visited many over the years of our RV travels.  My pictures won't do it justice, but all of the structures are absolutely gorgeous, meticulously maintained.  The grounds are immaculate.  The displays are unbelievable.  This picture is out of order, but I grabbed this shot of the floor in one of the keeper's quarters.  The restoration is amazing!

So the tour is supposed to start and end in the gift shop, which is where you pay the nominal entry fee and get your wrist band.  It is sad to see people cut around the building to avoid paying the $6 or whatever it was.  

From there the first stop is the woodshed video tour and privy display, but it was still closed from COVID. 

We bypass that and stopped at the "Second Assistant Keeper's Dwelling".  Not bad digs for the second assistant!

Next stop is the "Principal Keeper's Dwelling".  Also a very nice structure for the keeper and his family living here year round back in the 1800's.  

Keep in mind there were many, many more displays in each building but I need to limit the number of pictures here for brevity.

Next stop is the "First Assistant Keeper's Dwelling"

We then visited the actual lighthouse, also called the "tower".  We were thrilled it was actually open and we were able to climb all the way to the top.  Some interesting stats: 
- It is 175 ft high and took three years to build. 
- The beacon can be seen for up to 20 nautical miles away. 
- The tower contains 1,250,000 bricks! 
- The foundation is also brick and is 12 ft deep and 45 ft wide. 
- The tower's brick wall are 8 ft thick at the bottom and 2 ft thick at the top.
- The climb is 203 steps to get to the balcony where we will go today!  That is quite a climb!
-  The spiral staircase was built by an iron company in Philidelphia.
-  This is still a working lighthouse, also known as an "aid to navigation".  But unlike other lighthouses that are managed by the coast guard, this one is managed by the museum staff. 
-  The lens at the top is a third order Fresnel lens and the light flashes 6 times in 15 seconds and then 15 seconds off, called an eclipse.  

So away we went up the iron spiral staircase!  Unlike other lighthouses, the spiral staircase goes around the outside rather than the inside.  This leaves a hole up the middle they used to hoist the 5 gallon oil cans up at least part of the way.  Due to COVID, they installed plastic dividers at each platform level so groups going up could safely pass by groups going down.  Masks were supposed to be worn, but that seemed to be hit or miss. 

The pulley system is visible here.  Used to raise oil cans

203 steps later we reached the top.  We were able to exit the tower and go out on the balcony which provided a great view of the area.  

Looking south into Ponce Inlet

Back on the ground we visited the remaining structures including the oil house, the generator house and a building containing a lens display.  Again, each of these displays was simply amazing.  The detail they went to was outstanding.  

Outside the oil house.

The oil house evolved over the years.  These are bulk tanks from later on.

 

The building housed the lens display.  There were many different type of lenses on display.  Again, a great display and so much detail. 

We were so thankful to have seen this lighthouse. Doreen was able to get her lighthouse passport stamped and we headed back to the campground.

The salt spray had settled on the truck so I headed downtown to a car wash and got it all cleaned up.  When I returned we took another walk on the beach, and the wind continued to roar.  The seaweed has really piled up.

The poster and the flags today.  The blue flag was for Portuguese Man o' War in the water.

A bunch of seaweed.

I think we will pass on a swim today!

We scoured the shoreline for some more shells and found a few, nothing big.  

Doreen thinks they would make a cool necklace!

As mentioned before, the cruise line industry has ground to a halt due to COVID, but it appears they are making plans to resume operations.  Each different cruise line has their own timeline.  The soonest we read about was in the July timeframe.  Today a Disney Cruise ship came into port.  Quite a sight!

Tomorrow we have tickets to visit the Kennedy Space Center Museum complex.