Farol de Cabo Raso

Veronica Vleck

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The Cabo Raso lighthouse.
The lighthouse tower has a height of 13 m, the light is at 23 m altitude and its luminous range is 20 miles (c. 37 km), with a luminous characteristic of three white light periods, with a period of 15 seconds. It is based on the site of a military fort from 1693.

If you look on the website of the Cascais Council you can occasionally book a place on a tour of the lighthouses of this area. Seven km of this coast has more lighthouses than anywhere else in the world I believe. This is the only one that you can not go up the tower though. If you look inside you will see why- it has no banisters inside and is both very narrow and dangerous.
There is so much salt in the air here that the lighthouse keeper who is responsible for all the lighthouses around here- which are no longer permanently manned- told me some time ago that he regularly has to replace his car because it gets so rusty so quickly.
The original fog siren -based on compressed air- still works but is not used for the fog signal anymore.
You can learn more about the Portuguese lighthouse system at the lighthouise museum in Cascais behind the blue and white Santa Marta lighthouse.

Sennelier/Raphael Le Voyageur brushes, a Sennelier inkbrush and Sennelier Irridescent pastels on Arches cold pressed paper.

P.S. Be careful not to fall down the airholes of the lobster caves, and if you do decide to sit where I did do remember to occasionally look behind you- otherwise you might just get a wave landing on top of you!

3 years ago