South Africa - Cape Point Lighthouse

Cape Point - South Africa

The lighthouse at Cape Point commissioned in 1850.  Rusted wrecks along the coast attest to the untamed fury of these tempestuous seas.
2013

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Cape Point is a promontory (a prominent mass of land that overlooks lower-lying land or a body of water) at the southeast corner of the Cape Peninsula.

Fishing is good along the coast but the unpredictable swells make angling from the rocks very dangerous. Over the years scores of fishermen have been swept to their deaths from the rocky platforms by freak waves.  The bay is also famous - or infamous - for its great white sharks, which hunt the Cape Fur Seals that live in the area.

Cape point is not the southernmost point in Africa; that is Cape Agulhas, approximately 150 kilometres (93 mi) to the east-southeast.

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The Lighthouse :  (the old lighthouse is shown in the above postcard)

The new lighthouse is at a lower elevation (87 meters above sea level), for two reasons: the old lighthouse could be seen 'too early' by ships rounding the point towards the east, causing them to approach too closely. Secondly, foggy conditions often prevail at the higher levels, making the older lighthouse invisible to shipping. On 18 April 1911, the Portuguese liner Lusitania was wrecked just south of Cape Point on Bellows Rock for precisely this reason, prompting the relocation of the lighthouse.