lighthouses.lighting
A sailor never needs to see the tower. Every lighthouse speaks in its own rhythm of light and dark, and once you can read it, the night has names.
Seven short lessons, the nine lights of the Lower St. Lawrence and Gaspésie, and one light to name every night.
Begin the lessonA light is written as a short code: its rhythm, its colour, its period. Watch each light beat, then read the strip beneath it, one full cycle from left to right.
Chapter 1
F W
A fixed light never blinks. It is the simplest signature and the easiest to mistake for a lit window ashore, which is why a coast light needs a rhythm.
Illustration. None of the nine lights below shows a fixed light.
Chapter 2
Fl W 5s
Fl means flashing: the light is always shorter than the dark. One white flash of 1 second, then 4 seconds of night, and again.
Real light: Île-Verte, lit since 1809.
Chapter 3
Fl(3) W 7.5s
The number in brackets counts the flashes in each group. Three quick quarter-second flashes, one second apart, then a long dark pause of 4.75 seconds: the pause is what makes the group legible.
Real light: Pointe-Mitis, at Métis-sur-Mer.
Chapter 4
Oc W 20s
Turn the flash inside out: the light shines longer than it is dark, and is briefly eclipsed. Fifteen seconds of light, five seconds of night.
Real light: Cap-des-Rosiers, 34.1 m, the tallest lighthouse in Canada.
Chapter 5
Iso W 4s
Light and dark of exactly equal length. Iso W 4s means two seconds on, two seconds off, like a slow, even breath.
Illustration. None of the nine lights below is isophase.
Chapter 6
W · R · G
The letter after the rhythm gives the colour: W for white, R for red, G for green. Fl R is a red flash, Iso G a green isophase. Every light on this coast shows white.
Illustration: white, red and green, each Iso 4s.
Chapter 7
Fl(4) W 30s
The last number is the period, one complete cycle from the start of a group to the start of the next. Four flashes of 2 seconds, 3 seconds apart, then 13 seconds of dark: thirty seconds in all. Count it with the light.
Real light: La Martre, the red wooden tower.
Down Route 132, from Île-Verte to Cap-des-Rosiers. Six still burn. Three are dark, and are shown dark.
Fl W 5s
Flash 1 s, eclipse 4 s · range 19 nautical miles · lit in 1809, the first light of the St. Lawrence.
Active · official aidHistoric characteristic not confirmed
The reinforced-concrete tower of 1909, braced by eight flying buttresses, shone until 1975. We do not guess at its rhythm.
Decommissioned 1975Fl(3) W 7.5s
Flashes 0.25 s, eclipses 1 s, 1 s and 4.75 s · Métis-sur-Mer · its Chance Brothers lens floats on mercury.
Active · private aidHistoric signal: Fl(2) W 7.5s
The 1907 characteristic, from a single source. Built in 1906, in service in 1907, dark since 1951.
Decommissioned 1951Fl W 6s
Flash 1 s, eclipse 5 s · range 15 nautical miles · named for a rock shaped like a sitting cat.
Active · private aidFl(4) W 30s
Flashes 2 s, eclipses 3 s and 13 s · range 17 nautical miles · by day the lens still turns on its original weights and cables; the night light has been automated since 1972.
Active · private aidFl(3) W 27s
Range 20 nautical miles · its Fresnel lens is still in service · timing approximated: flash durations are not published.
Active · private aidHistoric signal: Fl(2) W 10s
The characteristic of the 1907 tower, from a single source. Home of Canada's first Marconi maritime wireless station, 1904.
Decommissioned 1975Oc W 20s
Light 15 s, eclipse 5 s · range 24 nautical miles · 34.1 m, the tallest lighthouse in Canada, lit in 1858.
Active · official aidEach night, one of the six lights still burning on this coast beats alone in the dark. Watch it, count it, name it. Everyone reading on the same date sees the same light.
Which lighthouse is this?
Count the flashes, then the dark. The lessons above hold every answer.
A new light at midnight, your time. Only lights still in service are in play.