Winter trek, Part XV: Ponce de Leon Inlet Lighthouse

Our trip to Ponce de Leon Inlet Lighthouse and museum was unplanned, but it was a pleasant surprise. It was a surprise because we didn't know it existed until after checking into our room and reading some paraphernalia about local attractions that the resort gave us when we checked in.

Lee Ann is a huge lighthouse aficionado, so the next day -- in the afternoon, well after the fog mentioned in yesterday's post had lifted -- we drove the 15 miles south to Ponce Inlet. We climbed the 180+ steps to the top of the lighthouse to get some panorama views (and photographs, of course). One such view is what you see in the photo leading off the post.

On the drive down there along the barrier reef's Atlantic Avenue (Florida Highway A1A), we passed a bit of traffic congestion clustered near what we later learned was Racing's First Turn, a bar that has a NASCAR theme. We had checked into our room in Ormond Beach on a Friday a full week before one of NASCAR's biggest races of the year -- the Daytona 500 -- and apparently stock car racing fans were already gathering in the Daytona/Ormond Beach area to enjoy the week leading up to the big race. There must have been some kind of planned get-together at the bar.

The lighthouse is 175 feet tall -- the tallest in Florida and the second largest masonry lighthouse in the country, behind only Cape Hatteras (207 feet), which is on the Outer Banks of North Carolina in Buxton, N.C. The inlet's first lighthouse actually was erected in 1835 on what was then referred to as Mosquito Inlet. Not long after it went into operation, a severe storm weakened its foundation in the sand, and it was finally rendered useless by a subsequent vandalism by Seminoles.

The new lighthouse -- moved away from sand -- opened in 1887 and became a National Historic Landmark in 1998. The inlet was renamed Ponce de Leon Inlet in 1927.

As always, to view a larger and sharper version of an image, simply click on the image. This is particularly important if you access the blog using a mobile device. To view a full gallery of shots from the visit to Ponce Inlet Lighthouse, click on the link in this sentence.

Photo geek stuff: All of the images in this post were taken with a Canon 6D and Tamron 28-300mm f/3.5-6.3 Di PZD VC lens equipped with a B+W polarizing filter. Each composition was bracketed for three exposures to allow the possibility of treating some shots in Photomatix high-dynamic range (HD) software. Almost all of the shots in this post are single-frame images.

Above: I'm always looking to get this perspective in a picture when I first enter a lighthouse. 

The lighthouse main entrance (above), which houses the gift shop, and the door to the long stairway to the top (below).

Above and next seven below (interrupted by, fifth below, an official view of the lighthouse itself) are various shots of the views from the top of the lighthouse. These include one showing the large shadow cast by the lighthouse onto the grounds (third below). 

Some of the property structures (above) that you see when exiting the lighthouse, and a slice of the nicely landscaped grounds (below). 

One structure on the grounds is devoted to displays of the sundry lenses the lighthouse has used through the years. One of those is pictured above. Elsewhere on the grounds is marker (below) commemorating the bronze bell salvaged from a sunken sea buoy at the Charleston Harbor entrance channel. It was minted in 1911 for the U.S. Lighthouse Service. Such bells were placed on harbor entrance buoys, on lightships and at some lighthouses and used as fog signals 

The lighthouse grounds also serve as a museum; the property and its several buildings -- including the keeper and his family's quarters -- have been preserved through the years. One of the buildings has a large poster listing all of the lighthouse's keepers (above). The keeper's quarters includes the kitchen and dining table setup shown in the first image below. The third image below is an exhibit of the uniforms worn by keepers at some point. 

Next up: Everything else, Ormond Beach, Fla.

Previous posts in this series: 

Savannah at night

Savannah in daylight

American Prohibition Museum

Telfair Academy

Jepson Center for the Arts

Thomas Kinkade Gallery, Savannah

Castillo de San Marcos, St. Augustine

World Golf Village and Hall of Fame, St. Augustine

St. Augustine Beach

Flagler College, St. Augustine

Everything else, St. Augustine

Florida Keys' skies

Return to Key West

Heavy fog at Ormond Beach, Fla.