Road Salt & Lighthouses

Frensel Lens Mount

Light House Looking North

It's Tuesday afternoon and we are anchored at Abraham's Bay on the south shore of Mayaguana.  Getting ready for the first strong weather front of the season.  We dove the anchor earlier today and put out 180 ft of chain rode anticipating the big blow.  Wind is blowing 30 knots right now.  Wind will continue to clock to the right and blow until our next weather window on Sunday.    Then it will be 60 nm to Turks & Caicos and a flight home for Christmas.

Cable for Rotation Weight

Chance Brothers Lighthouses

As part of our Great Inagua tour last Friday, Casper (mentioned in the previous blog) dropped us off at the Great Inagua Light House.  The lighthouse is in operation today using an LED light.  The light house was constructed in 1870 by Chance Brothers out of England.  The light used a Frenzel lens and a 4 wick kerosene flame.  The lens rotated and the flame stayed stationary.  The lens rotated by a gear mechanism driven by a large weight that descended through the middle of

Kerosene Tanks 20 Feet Below Light

the light house circular staircase.  The weight had to be cranked back up every hour and kerosene had to be pumped to the top of the lighthouse with a hand crank.   The two light keepers were very busy all night.

I mentioned the Morton Salt Operation that produces the road salt used all along the USA East Coast.  The operation pumps 500 thousand gallons of salt water ever day into canals that move the water for 30 months through various very shallow salt ponds.  These salt ponds take up about half of the island and on a sunny day, clouds form from the water evaporating.  As the water evaporates, the salt concentration gets higher and after two and a half years, the salt is concentrated enough to drain to a processing pond.  Pumps drain the pond, then once the pond is dry, they use a road grader to pile the salt in long rows, then a harvester is used to load mining trucks to bring it to the salt pile you see in the picture.

Road Salt Headed for Massachusetts

It took them 5 days to load the salt ship, but it left Saturday night, and the workers were off for Sunday, so we decided to dive around the piers.  I got  the biggest lobster of the trip right off of
the platform.

We finally got our weather window Monday morning and off to The largest ships graveyard in the Bahamas:  Hogstay Reef.

Pink Flamingos Fly Over Dikes on a Morton Salt Pond

Big Lobster off the Morton's Plant

Sam Scouting a World Record Black Jack