Sunday, February 28, 2010

Barra's Lighthouse, Brazil

First fort built in the city, it had the function of hindering the enemies entrance in All Saints’ Bay. Initiated in 1582, it got the shape of an irregular polygon with ten sides, six salient and four re-entering angles; its current dimensions, however, just came about in the 17th century.

The first wooden lighthouse, which functioned with whale oil, was made in 1696 and it indicated the entrance of the bay, alerting to the dangers of the coral reef or sandbank of Santo Antônio – the current iron lighthouse, working with electricity, was built in 1836. In the fort, there are a restaurant, a bar and the Nautical Museum, with exhibitions of old maps, navigation equipment, models of vessels, artillery pieces and remains of shipwrecks that happened in Barra, mainly Galleon Sacramento’s.

Thank you Luiz for this lovely lighthouse postcard!:)

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