September 2007

"Lighthouses"

Since the now mythical lighthouse of Alexandria, built in 3 BC, there have been many lighthouses that have emerged along the coasts all over the world. The lighthouse, point of reference and guide for seafarers, has also served as the subject matter and plot of many literary creations. Their location on coastal promontories or headlands, on islands or sand banks, enhances their gracefulness and presence, which means they lend themselves to evoking fantastic and romantic stories of sailors and damsels and of shipwrecks in stormy and foggy nights. The lighthouses, with their guiding light, have always shown the way to seafarers who have gone astray in their path, with their ray of hope. Correos issues a mini-sheet to these buildings and lighthouse-towers, which includes the image of six constructions: Punta del Hidalgo lighthouse (Tenerife); Cabo Mayor lighthouse (Cantabria); Punta Almina lighthouse (Ceuta); Melilla lighthouse; Cabo de Palos lighthouse (Murcia); Gorliz Lighthouse (Biscay). Stamps reproduce the image of all of them.

The Punta del Hidalgo lighthouse, located in the municipal district of La Laguna, was built in 1992. It is a tower with a very innovating structure and white, irregular, truncated pyramid masonry. It is over 50 metres high, a white light and nominal range of 16 nautical miles.

The Cabo Mayor lighthouse in Santander, now turned into an art centre, was inaugurated in 1839 and also served as fort. It has a circular ground plan which acts as a cylindrical stone-clad tower. It is approximately 30 above land level and has a focal altitude of 91 above sea level. It was the first Spanish lighthouse to run ran on mineral oil.

The Ceuta lighthouse of Punta Almina is a white cylindrical tower, measuring approximately seven metres positioned over a building. Its height above sea level is 148 m and it has a range of 22 miles. Underneath it is have the military castle-museum known as the Desnarigado (Flat-nosed).

Melilla lighthouse is a grey, torch shaped tower and aluminium dome. It is positioned at 40 m above sea level and at a height of 12 m above the land. It has a range of 14 miles.

The Cabo de Palos lighthouse began to be constructed in January 1863 and was illuminated in January 1865. It is a tower of grey masonry in the form of a slightly conical column, which starts from the centre of a square building and has a height of 80 m above sea level.

Finally, Gorliz lighthouse, in Euskadi, has a very avant-garde design. It was built in 1990 and consists of a white, 21 m high tower, positioned on an impressive cliff. It is approximately 165 m above sea level and its light has a range of 29 miles.