There is nearly nothing phare-wise down here, so the odd feu that turns up (like at les Brochets) can provoke a response and interest that further north, in Brittany for example, would be considered somewhat 'over the top'. Never mind! We will take what we can get, as the type of coast we are now encountering is very much to our taste with or without phares: we'll settle for feux (like le Feu des Époids) the odd cardinal or beacon, even sticks with flags tied to them, guiding the boats that venture in and out of the fishing harbours hereabouts. And we will (always!) settle for a good moules-frites at Port du Bec as well, if it is lunch time, which is the most likely reason we have gone off piste, on the way to, or coming back from Le Passage du Gois or even Île Noirmoutier.
OK, so one passes onto the Île Noirmoutier, either across the sands of the bay via the Passage du Goix or over the modern road bridge a few kilometres to the south. We did it via the bridge as the crossing was still under the tide. Our target? Why the Pointe des Dames lighthouse of course, the above preamble was just to set the scene. We came back via the above passage, the tide having dropped sufficiently: we have traversed Goix both ways and not had to resort to the refuges once!
Pointe des Dames is another of those squarish towers of very moderate height closely associated with a similarly modest dwelling, originally the abode of whoever was entrusted with the running and upkeep of the lighthouse. France has a load of them, all slightly different from one another, some very limited in their range while others make it into division 1 of French Phares with class 1 Fresnel lenses even, in their day.
Pointe des Dames came on stream in 1867: PdD has a focal plane of 34 metres (112ft) and displays white, red, or green aspects depending on where you are seeing it from. We have an occulter here, doing it three times every twelve seconds. The tower is but 19 metres tall (62ft). Huelse can be relied upon to file a historic postcard view. Take a look.
PdD is prettily located off the Allée du Tambourin on the northeastern corner of the island, about two kilometres northeast of the Noirmoutier-en-l'Île waterfront. It is almost surrounded by pine trees amongst which it seems to be trying to hide. We pottered about the site and the bay within which it sits and found it pleasing although I do wish keepers would park their cars out of sight so that us lighthouse buffs can get more sympathetic and aesthetic images for their lighthouse collection. Mme Melling declined to call on the keeper and order him to move his motor, which disappointed me rather.
Having taken in the scene here, and discovered what we think might have been another lighthouse at one time but now reduced to a private residence, (see bottom right, what do you think?) we returned to our motor and drove on in hope to the far northern tip of the island anticipating a distant view of Le Pilier, to tick off the phare of the same name thereupon; but something we can no longer now clearly recall, distracted us from our purpose: we turned around before making the hoped for visual contact, to get back to the Passage du Goix, which was now just about passable, and returned to the mainland. A pity, as this leaves another phare missing from my list, damn it all; I doubt you can see Pilier from anywhere else… on the other hand we were able to grab a superb moules-frites at Port du Bec, so at least we had very adequate compensation for our lack of resolution on Noirmoutier!
The Lighthouse Directory can give you chapter and verse on this lighthouse on a small island of the same name. Odd that they built a lighthouse there only to find the tower they had put up was not adequate to carry the lantern planned for it… so they simply built another similar but slightly wider squarer tower that was up to the job! Both stand in close proximity to one another, the deficient one incorporating a fog signal or some such. The Île du Pilier is a bird sanctuary and more-or-less closed to ordinary mortals.
The designer of the Pilier light built and lived in the round house pictured below right, his name escapes me, but he built a few other lighthouses so made his house to look like one too. A nerd I guess! Takes one to know one I suspect…
The designer of the Pilier light built and lived in the round house pictured below right, his name escapes me, but he built a few other lighthouses so made his house to look like one too. A nerd I guess! Takes one to know one I suspect…
The illustrations are by Jean Benoît Héron and the photographs are exclusively mine.
