HEADING TO THE WEDDING.............................

The wedding is to be held in Hope Town, a small community in the Bahamas, originally made famous for its ability to plunder the wrecked ships that ran aground on its reefs. The British government then erected a lighthouse in 1868, which generally upset the community no end, resulting in an 'economic downturn'............. which was periodically reversed when the lighthouse was made... "not to work".............. Today, Hope Town and its historic lighthouse are thriving, with 70 cents in every dollar coming from tourism, and this wedding should double that. The wedding party and all the guests are flying in and staying almost a week..............sunshine, flowers, blue water.........pink drinks and pink sunsets.......... The early bird arrivals have been sightseeing, including this photo on the right taken from the top of the lighthouse. The iconic lighthouse is even depicted on this mailbox............... The original settlers were "Loyalists", those who did not want the party politics of the American colonies, but rather the order of His English Majesty "King George" ..............Sadly today, for your basic shopping, you still need to go to the "American Colonies" and Walmart...............albeit by plane or boat........ The lighthouse is known as "ELBOW REEF LIGHTHOUSE" and you can clearly see that the island looks like an elbow from the top of the lighthouse...................




Much photographed, painted and embroided, this towering monument is now to be immortalised on the wedding glasses, hand-painted we might add, and a surprise gift for all the guests at Lauren-Anne and Tony's nuptials. ....................... Not that this historic monument is defunct............ Quite the opposite............. Daily, the tanks high up in the structure, are filled with kerosene (paraffin) from jerrycans that are hoisted up with a rope and pulley, and the cable with its counter weights, are manually re-wound to allow the glass dioptic lens structure to rotate all night long, giving a signal beam at least 17 miles out to sea. This should allow the sportsfishermen with their million dollar yachts and their elaborate GPS/Radar/depthsounder/chartplotter electronics to find Hope Town harbour, in relative safety.



You might just have to double-click on the wine glasses to see the little painted lighthouses.....



Those concentric glass lens rings are some four feet in diameter and at least three inches thick, and if you have ever lifted a mirror or some window glass, then you will know this was marvelous engineering, in a place where today it is very, very...... very hard to get a fan belt...... We know......And these humungous lenses are ten stories up in the air.............



So nightly, the little paraffin lamp is lit by hand, and the hand-cut glass prismatic dioptric lenses rotate, casting shadows over the quaint little cottages below. The lenses, together with the steel machinery, was manufactured in England and shipped out to the Colony of the Bahamas ................And most likely on a SAILING SHIP............Think about that while the sun sets..........................Now come up to the balcony at the lighthouse by clicking on the video arrow below...................