HOPE TOWN LIGHTHOUSE, ELBOW CAY, ABACO, BAHAMAS
This must be the best known landmark of Abaco – ‘iconic’, perhaps, in the modern sense of the word. The weather on the day was pretty poor, with thick cloud and intermittent rain and drizzle. Which is a pity, because the photos would have looked even better with sunshine and blue sky… The ‘works’ are of particular interest. If you are interested, read on and see the wondrous photos. If you are beginning to stifle a yawn, maybe this is not the page for you…
All Photos: Mrs Rolling Harbour
(click on Coordinates below for position and Hope Town info)
| Location: | Elbow Cay, port of Hope Town |
|---|---|
| Coordinates |  26.539421°N 76.958840°WCoordinates |
| Year first constructed: | 1862 |
| Year first lit: | 1864 |
| Construction: | Masonry |
| Tower shape: | Conical |
| Markings/Pattern: | Red and white bands |
| Focal Height: | 37 m (121 ft) |
| Original lens: | First order Fresnel |
| Range: | 23 nmi |
| Characteristic: | Fl(5) 15s |
| Admiralty number: | J4572 |
| NGA number: | 11800 |
| ARLHS number: | BAH-010 |
The Hope Town Lighthouse is one of only three Manual Lighthouses left in the World. It has a spring mechanism that has to be hand cranked every few hours to maintain the sequence of five white flashes every 15 seconds. The lamp burns kerosene with a wick and mantle. The light is then focused as it passes through the optics of a first order (largest size) Fresnel lens which floats on a bed of mercury.
A Fresnel lens (pron. ‘Fray-nel’) is a type of lens originally developed by a French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel specifically for lighthouses.Compared to conventional bulky lenses, the Fresnel lens is much thinner, larger, and flatter, and captures more oblique light from a light source, thus allowing lighthouses to be visible over much greater distances. Fresnel’s lighthouse lenses ordinarily fell into six orders based on their focal length, first order being the largest (wiki-assist)
ROLLING HARBOUR GALLERY 
