The main issue really is that apart from Goulphar, which is a division one light-of-lights, the rest tend to be your standard modest tower sprouting from a usually rather humble house, in a style so beloved of the French. But I like these edifices as well, don't I……? I do … but we've just not been able to visit them. Thus far!
Here is my digest then, of that string of lights, South Finistère and Morbihan isles, illustrated by snaps made by others I'm afraid: I've not been, not seen. I give credits to these more fortunate coves with each phare featured here below…
I am assuming a progression from west to east, so that the first island we come to after sailing round the Eckmühl headland is Île aux Moutons, a flattish granite confection, small, with white beaches, salty meadows and no other dwellings. Eleven kilometres out. It looks lovely actually, but beware: the power needed to run the light looks like being provided by an oil fuelled generator… hmm. Going all night I suspect. Not surprised the keeper has shipped out… I imagine the light is controlled remotely now.
Île-aux-Moutons gets grouped into the island archipelago of Îles de Glénan which features our second lighthouse going east… Penfret.
This lighthouse gets far more visits from those lucky enough to have acquired watercraft. I note that now there are solar panels installed so probably no noisy generator disturbs the night on Penfret island… ( I assume Penfret is the name of the island but am not sure)… just noisy barbecuing and other unseemly behaviour from the junior boating brigade, I expect. It ought to be banned!!
The Lighthouse Directory is very insistent on conveying the fact that the single storey keeper's house at Pen-Men has been extended toward the seaward side so that the tower no longer rises from the centre of said house. This may explain why most of the snaps taken of Pen-Men are 'face-on', not three-quarter views. Huelse's post card is obviously prior to the new extension, taken during a re-tiling operation. I realise the image may be to small for you to spot this, but space limitations preclude a more extensive rendition. Stop me if I am boring you…
Now a brief interlude for that most under-appreciated lighthouse out there on its concrete riser, Les Birvideaux. Hardly anybody seems to know about it. JBH completely overlooks it and folk who do sail past it are either too far gone on champagne to realise it is a phare, or just put it down as another damned cardinal!
Not seen it m'self sadly… has a range of ten nautical miles – modest I know, but come on, cardinals don't have keeper's quarters! A phare in my books. Don't get me started Can't read the text panel below? Click on it to enlarge, surely you know that?
Interlude over. We now rush on to another well populated island, Belle-Île, the largest of this collection, a holiday destination for thousands and not to be entertained in season by lovers of quiet, solitude or those averse to human pressure. Dear me, no. It would just have to be Belle-Île that sports Goulphar, the best lighthouse between Eckmühl and Grand Cardinaux. I have outlined Goulphar in my post 46, as best I can, so in this appendix I will continue with my focus on the two other phares that grace the island: they are sweet-but-modest…
At the northern tip of Belle-Île we can find, just off shore, on a mini island of its own, Phare-de-Poulains… or Les Poulains as Jean Benoît Héron has it, when he sketched it. (As if by magic, and completely coincidentally, Les Poulains is this week's phare in the 2019-21 Heron Agenda). The place had two chimneys then and two chimneys when the Plissons took their famous photograph of the phare in a daytime storm back in November 1996. They claim in their book Lighthouses of the Atlantic that, having sold 400 000 prints of this startling location, their picture is or was the largest selling image of any lighthouse in the world, at the time. I may be risking life and limb by giving you herewith a visual reference to that image. It is a fine snap to be sure… I intend no copyright infringement.
Our last phare-or-is-it-a-feu in this hall of shame is La Teignouse. How did we miss it? Clearly visible from Quiberon on a good day, which naturally it wasn't when we were there – I recall an enveloping sea mist, my excuse and I am sticking to it: the mist, together with my failure to confirm what lights we might expect to see from some appropriate directory, source, or guide.
NB: In September 2021 we made amends concerning La Teignouse, or leastways we tried to. The light was all wrong. And it is NOT clearly visible from Quiberon… see the later update on this and other lights in appendix 94 for riveting detail!
Thanks as usual to JBH for the illustrations here and to the contributors of photographs which I have credited accordingly, not to mention that comprehensive source of information, The Lighthouse Directory. You'll be sorry to learn that this is the last sentence in this appendix, so what will you do now, as if I cared? (I do care, honest……).
Thanks as usual to JBH for the illustrations here and to the contributors of photographs which I have credited accordingly, not to mention that comprehensive source of information, The Lighthouse Directory. You'll be sorry to learn that this is the last sentence in this appendix, so what will you do now, as if I cared? (I do care, honest……).
