île d'ouessant 6: kéréon

As I perambulated along various stretches of the south-eastern coast of Ouessant I remained on high alert, in the hope that sooner or later I would be granted an even better view of the most distant lighthouse Ouessant claims as its own, Kéréon.

I did not have much luck, equipped with a mere 125mm zoom lens on my SLR I was up against it in trying to record this famous light, the last French rock lighthouse to be built. I was not helped by the tendency toward grey skies (the sun shone at times but not at the right times). So the view as we left Ouessant is probably the best shot I have got of this distinguished phare. But I peered at it through my trusty monocular and could see some of the finer detail that JBH gets into his lantern realisation. You'll notice that Jument sneaks into the picture I present up top; by now I hope you will have noticed that for a small island Ouessant really does have an abundance of grade A towers. But then the island also entertains the most dangerous seas in Europe, set all about with numerous rocky islets scattered around a treacherous shore… There are quite a few wrecks in the area, like the Drummond Castle on the north coast of the island for example…

Kéréon was first lit in 1916. Paid for entirely by a public benefactor. It has focal plane of 38 metres (125ft), showing a white or red light, depending on direction, occulting three times in a 2+1 pattern every 24 seconds. The white light can be seen eighteen nautical miles away, the red, fourteen. The fog horn gives a morse code letter K (for Kéréon, one assumes) – long-short-long, every two minutes. The tower is 41 metres (135ft) tall incorporating six floors within it and mounted on a circular concrete base. It took nine years to complete. When the tower was occupied the accommodations were so sumptuous that the keepers called the tower 'The Palace' (but in Breton or French of course). They manned the tower until it was finally automated on 29 January 2004.

Kéréon is situated on the usually-submerged Men-Tensel reef about two kilometres south-east of the eastern point of Ouessant but it looked a lot further away to me. I read that the polished floors, panelling and fine fittings are now deteriorating rapidly, without the good housekeeping of the keepers who wore slippers about the place. Another victim of a disinterested attitude from successive administrations. A great shame.

Thanks for Jean Benoît Héron's illuminating illustrations here, and below is the best view I could take from my walks on that side of the island. I did get along that extension of the island in front of Kéréon (centre) but by the time I did, the lighthouse was obscured by fog and rain. Damn. What I would have given to have my current 30x zoom … It's no good, we'll have to go back…