Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Oak Island Lighthouse, NC



While at the beach over Christmas vacation  we spent a day and drove up to Calabash, NC to blunder around Callahan's Gift Shop and the St. Nick Nack Christmas Shop. We left there and headed a little further north, then east to Oak Island, NC. I knew from a little research that there where 4 lighthouses up in that area. Of course, the Oak Island Lighthouse was the easiest to find and drive to. Across the water you could see the Bald Island Lighthouse but you needed to take a ferry over to Bald Island first. We opted not to do this. The Cape Fear Lighthouse and the Price Creek Lighthouse were also out of reach. Cape Fear is only a foundation and it too is on Bald Island. And the Price Creek light has no public access. The Oak Island Light (shown here) was built in 1958 to be the last time they replaced it. It is 158 feet tall and is built from 8 inch thick concrete. And for durable colors they mixed paint right into the concrete. The lighthouse now belongs to the Town of Caswell Beach, although the light itself is still operated by the US Coast Guard, located right next door.


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