The Punta Martiño Lighthouse ( es, Faro de Punta Martiño) is an active

lighthouse A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Lighthouses mar ...

on the Canary island of

Lobos Lobos is the headquarters city of the Lobos Partido in Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. It was founded on 2 June 1802 by José Salgado. Background Located 100 km from Buenos Aires, Lobos is currently a fertile agricultural area known ma ...

, near

Fuerteventura Fuerteventura () is one of the Canary Islands, in the Atlantic Ocean, part of the North Africa region, and politically part of Spain. It is located away from the northwestern coast of Africa. The island was declared a biosphere reserve by UNES ...

in the municipality of

La Oliva La Oliva () is a town and a municipality in the northern part of the island of Fuerteventura in the Province of Las Palmas, Canary Islands, Spain. The population is 25,083 (2013), The lighthouse is situated on a hill at the north-eastern end of the island, and along with the other lights at Pechiguera and Tostón, marks the La Bocayna strait that separates

Lanzarote Lanzarote (, , ) is a Spanish island, the easternmost of the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean. It is located approximately off the north coast of Africa and from the Iberian Peninsula. Covering , Lanzarote is the fourth-largest of the i ...

from Fuerteventura.

History

The lighthouse was opened in 1865, making it one of the oldest in the Canaries. Built in a similar style to other Canarian 19th-century lights, it consists of a painted single storey house, with dark volcanic rock used for the masonry detailing. A six-metre-high () masonry tower is attached to the seaward side of the house. Faro del islote de Lobos (03)

The sixth order light was originally powered by

olive oil Olive oil is a liquid fat obtained from olives (the fruit of ''Olea europaea''; family Oleaceae), a traditional tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin, produced by pressing whole olives and extracting the oil. It is commonly used in cooking: f ...

, and gave a steady red light that had a range of 9 miles. In 1883, the oil-powered lamp was replaced by one that ran on paraffin, and then in 1923 this was superseded by an acetylene lamp, that provided a longer range, and flashed twice every five seconds. An automatic

sun valve A sun valve (''Swedish: solventil'', "solar valve") is a flow control valve that automatically shuts off gas flow during daylight. It earned its inventor Gustaf Dalén the 1912 Nobel Prize in Physics. Subsequently other variants of sun valve were d ...

was also added, to save the keeper having to light and extinguish the lamp, each day at dusk and dawn. A system of solar panels and batteries now provide the power for a 150-

watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wa ...

electric halogen lamp, which has a reach of 14

nautical mile A nautical mile is a unit of length used in air, marine, and space navigation, and for the definition of territorial waters. Historically, it was defined as the meridian arc length corresponding to one minute ( of a degree) of latitude. Today ...

s. When the lighthouse was automated in the 1960s the keeper and his family were the last to leave the island, which now has no permanent residents. The area around the lighthouse can be reached by following the marked 3.5 km footpath from the ferry landing; although the site is accessible, the tower and buildings are closed.

References

External links

Comisión de faros

Parque Natural Islote de Lobos
{{DEFAULTSORT:Punta Martino Lighthouse Lighthouses completed in 1865 Lighthouses in Fuerteventura

History

See also

References

External links